Evidence of meeting #37 for Natural Resources in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was reactors.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chief Executive Officer, Tyne Engineering
I can't really help you very much on that, I'm afraid.
Conservative
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Thank you to all of you for being here this morning.
I think I'll start with you, John. I think one of you said that CNL was going in the wrong direction.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Could you expand on what that wrong direction is and what you think the right direction is? Is it just a matter of focusing on something, or...?
Chief Executive Officer, Tyne Engineering
Of course, I might be speaking out of turn, and I might have some ideas wrong. I say that because CNL is a large place, and we have a fairly focused access to them. We deal with the hydrogen people and we deal with some others, but there are a lot of things going on that we don't deal with. I shouldn't generalize in any case.
The way I see it is that CNL now is being forced to lend out its services almost as a private industry. In other words, it will perform a certain act at whatever they can get in terms of money for that act. There's some sense in that, of course, because it makes it financially viable.
Personally I think that's wrong, because I think CNL provides an opportunity for the Government of Canada to feed very good information. There are a lot of very smart people at CNL, and they have a lot of good equipment that most small companies—no small companies, I think I'm probably right in saying—could possibly provide themselves. That access can spawn industries—small industries, perhaps, but small industries add up. Take the helium-3 we're talking about. It's a small industry that's not huge, but it would add up and it's high tech.
By the way, we do that with a number of things. We've been developing electrolyzers with CNL. We've been developing electrolyzers that are tritium-compatible. That's what makes them so original. But because of that we have developed what is sometimes being referred to by others as a robust electrolyzer that could be used for hydrogen and perhaps that also has spinoff advantages.
We are very interested in tritium and tritium handling. These are big things, though, and they are extremely expensive for us. We need not only the technical support and the encouragement but also financial support. We can't pay CNL prices that are four and five times the prices that we use in our own offices. We can't get far enough that way, and we can't make those kinds of commitments. We don't have it. It's not possible.
If the Government of Canada wants to take advantage of an expanding industry this way—and the right kind of industry, as far as I'm concerned, because high tech is good work, that's long-term work and it's what we want to do—why don't we focus some funds and a lot of energy into the smaller companies? They could focus, not on the bigger ones who are going to just design and build what we've already got, but on the smaller ones that are developing bubble technology, tritium lights, or the numerous other possibilities. Why don't they spend more time on doing that?
That's what I mean when I say they are going the wrong way. They have some great people. They are very easy to talk to. They have lots of capability and knowledge to give. Why don't they give it, not sell it?
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Right.
To the Queen's team here, you mentioned that we have to work on developing technologies to use that spent fuel we have and make sure it's available in these repositories. I'm just wondering what directions we need to go to get there, how the government could assist that, and who would do that work.
Professor, Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Queen's University
I think it sort of goes back to the previous question about where Canada should focus. I think Canada has some unique opportunities because of the CANDU design, and we should be focusing on building on our strengths and building on the momentum that has been reignited over the last 15 years or so when there has been more nuclear research. I think within the CANDU design you can find ways to use some of that spent fuel, and perhaps—as Rick already said—by connecting into the fast breeder program.
Where would that research have to be done? I think CNL is the obvious location to initiate that research. As we heard from Tyne Engineering, if you start the research at CNL, so long as the governance is correctly positioned, then there will be spinoff opportunities, and that's where you will see the commercialization and opportunities to actually implement. The research has to be done at a big research lab, though.
Rick, do you have anything?
Professor Emeritus, Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Queen's University
I'm just going to touch on another point that came up earlier about the way CNL is and has been run. In the days when I started at CNL, in 1968, everything was funded by the federal government. CNL had a very open policy of spinning off their technology to companies that wanted to build a nuclear business. That was quite successful for many years.
With the cutbacks in the eighties and nineties, an emphasis was put on these labs having to support themselves as much as possible. That's where this commercialization and going into competition with the private sector came in. A number of labs around the world have attempted to do that, and it has never been very successful.
I don't think CNL has ever made a very significant contribution to its overall operating costs from the commercial R and D that it's done, except during the period of 1990 to 1997, when there was a big agreement with the Ontario government when hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on CANDU.
The old model, where AECL does technology and spins it off to industry, seems to me like a good one, and I think our other guests here would agree with that perception.
The focus now seems to be on forcing CNL to continue only on the basis that it will obtain commercial R and D funding. Under that regime, there will be no new reactors developed, and there will be no neutron source ever built at Chalk River. Canada's nuclear capability will die out, and Chalk River will become a decommissioning site.
For nuclear technology to really continue in Canada, it needs the will on the part of the federal government to have a long-term nuclear future and to invest in that. Success will probably come from focusing on one system, the way CANDU was focused on. The focus was on CANDU in the early days for various reasons. We were going to use natural uranium. We couldn't build a big pressure vessel, so we had a pressure tube reactor. That kind of formed the way the CANDU reactor looked. We just focused on that, and it was very successful for the last 40 years. Now we need to look forward to what's coming next, and my—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
I'm going to have to stop you there, Professor, unfortunately.
We go over to you, Mr. McLeod.
Liberal
Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT
Thank you to the university and to Tyne Engineering for these presentations.
I'm from the Northwest Territories, and we don't have any facilities in the north, I believe all of the north, including Nunavut and Labrador. We don't have any companies that provide these types of services or power or heat. We do have really high costs in the Northwest Territories, as you can imagine. Everything is a little more challenging; it's colder, and there's very little infrastructure. We are looking at ways to lower our costs for power and heat. It's really difficult. Almost every community in the north gets its power through diesel generators.
We've had some discussions on alternative energies and ways to do things. I've heard a couple of things about nuclear. First of all, there might be the possibility of running a line from the reactors or nuclear plants in Ontario to the north, but that's quite a way. I don't know if that's doable. I've also heard of small modular nuclear reactors that are safe and environmentally clean and use spent fuel.
I'm just wondering if either the university or you have ever looked at how nuclear could be utilized in the north.
Maybe you could start first.
Chief Executive Officer, Tyne Engineering
A straight answer from us would be, no, we haven't looked at that specifically.
We support CANDU energy, nuclear energy, 100% as a clean source of energy that's not going to destroy the environment and that's safe. We get a lot of objections to that, I know, but for example, I have been in nuclear energy since 1959, both in England and then subsequently for 10 years or so overseas, always with CANDU reactors, and I've never come across a serious nuclear accident. I can't say that with any other operation that I can think of: aircraft, automobiles, oil company, gas company.
I think nuclear energy is worth looking at very closely. I know there are still these connotations around nuclear energy, and of course you can run into occasional problems like Fukushima, and they're very serious. I accept that, but you have to put your money in something that gives power. Nuclear power, I think, is the right solution.
Whether in the cases you're talking about the preference for small nuclear power stations would be better, these are all in development at this stage in the game. Hopefully they will produce the kind of power you need. I think for the moment nuclear power is our future. I'm not close-minded about that. If wind were better, if solar were better, I would support them to the hilt. We want the best there is. In my opinion, at the moment it's nuclear. It produces good quantities of power and it's clean power.
I think that's what you'd need.
Liberal
Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT
Perhaps I could get the Queen's University professors' perspective on that.
Professor Emeritus, Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Queen's University
The modular reactor certainly has some of the focus of the proponents of modular reactors, those that would be suitable for small communities like the communities you're talking about. I can't think of any other version of a reactor that would provide power to the Northwest Territories, but the proponents of the modular reactor are keen on selling it in the north.
Professor, Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Queen's University
There's not a whole lot of research being done in Canada, I think, on SMRs. Certainly other countries are investing quite heavily in SMRs, and there are technologies that make sense in terms of SMRs, from sort of reinvigorating older technologies that have been looked at historically to modifications of even things like the PWR. You can imagine passively safe—meaning that you don't have to have active systems to maintain them safe—small modular reactors. Definitely it's doable. One of the things from the Canadian point of view is that if we're not in a position perhaps to immediately go forward, you need to ensure that the bodies that would advise the government and the provincial governments or the territory governments as to what would be the appropriate system are well educated in what the options are and on safety, so I suppose CNSC and CNL would be the locations of that expertise.
To have a Canadian SMR design, there is still a lot of work to do.
Liberal
Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT
Thank you.
My next question is on something you raised, John Robinson. Regarding the view of how safe nuclear energy is, in the Northwest Territories some companies have come to the north wanting to do presentations. They received strong opposition, to the point where one company just walked out of the room because there was so much yelling and screaming and protesting.
It seems as if this is the way to our future—that's what you've said—but we haven't created a lot of education or awareness in this area. Can you talk about that a little bit? Who should be doing it? Is it the government that needs to do a better job? Is it the industry? Is it a combination of both? What can we do to get people to realize that this is a safe...?
Chief Executive Officer, Tyne Engineering
Of course, you're getting really out of the realm of where I can help very much. We build things. We make things. But we come into contact with a lot of that kind of discussion.
Clearly you need government support. That's one thing, because that would influence the media and the media needs that support. People need to have confidence in things, reasonable confidence. We're not saying that it's the be-all and end-all and that other alternatives shouldn't be searched after, and one of these days there will be a much better alternative and that's the one that we have to have. But if you're making a selection that's going to affect you, your family, and your children, you want to make the best selection, whatever that is.
There seems to be a general feeling that Canadians are now a little bit more in favour of nuclear than, let's say, 10 years ago, when everybody was dead against it. I think it should be tempered always with some understanding that they are dangerous substances that you're handling and that great care has to be taken and there has to be emphasis on safety. But all those things being considered, I think it is a good solution, temporary though that might be, until a better one comes along. I think the government has to support that.
President, Tyne Engineering
Our process engineering division manager, Peter Ozemoyah, is the president of the Canadian Nuclear Society, and they do CNS conferences at various locations around the country, not necessarily at a nuclear hub, and the involvement of young people from universities is a big focal point. That does seem to provide that information to the community, to families, through the young people. Maybe you could look into the possibility of CNS doing some of their conferences or events in the north with participants in the universities.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you very much.
That brings us to the end of our time for this segment of the meeting. Thank you to the witnesses, our two professors and our two Robinsons, for attending today. It's been very helpful. Unfortunately, we have run out of time. These hours go by very quickly, but thank you again for joining us.
We'll suspend for two minutes and then we'll begin the second hour.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Good morning. Thank you all for joining us today.
We have from SNC-Lavalin International, Justin Hannah; from TRIUMF, Jonathan Bagger; and from MDS Nordion, Richard Wiens and Emily Craven.
Thank you all for being here this morning. Some of you may have been here for the first session.
The process is that each group has up to 10 minutes to deliver some remarks, and then we'll open the floor to questions. We follow tight timelines, so sometimes I'm going to have to interrupt people and cut them off in mid-sentence. I'm not trying to be rude. It's just that we have to adhere to the time frame so that everybody has the chance to ask their questions.
I'll open the floor with TRIUMF.
Dr. Jonathan Bagger Director, TRIUMF
Good morning.
My name is Jonathan Bagger and I am the director of TRIUMF, the national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics and accelerator-based science.
I am accompanied today by Mr. Sean Lee, who is responsible for external relations at TRIUMF.
I thank the members of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources for having invited me today.
Let me start by saying a few words about TRIUMF. We are a large science research facility, located in Vancouver, that is owned and operated by 19 universities stretching across Canada. We employ approximately 500 staff and students, making our laboratory one of the largest of its kind in Canada. We are also an interdisciplinary laboratory, with world-class programs in the physical and life sciences, quantum materials, and accelerator science. We have a deep-seated commitment to the commercialization of our technologies.
Ultimately, what we do can be stated quite simply. TRIUMF is a factory for discovery and innovation that advances research for science, medicine, and business. From the abstract to the applied, we solve problems for the benefit of Canadians.
This morning I would like to highlight Canadian expertise in accelerator science, explain how this translates into a competitive advantage for medical isotopes, and argue that Canada risks losing this advantage unless the federal government assumes active stewardship of this field.
As you well know, Canada has a storied history as a world leader in nuclear technology. However, Canada's expertise extends far beyond nuclear reactors. Since TRIUMF's founding nearly 50 years ago, Canada has been a global leader in the development of particle accelerators. Such accelerators are at the heart of everything we do at TRIUMF. Our laboratory is home to the world's largest cyclotron, as well as a new superconducting linear accelerator that will open opportunities for generations to come. Accelerators are used in fundamental science and also for a host of applications in advanced materials, clean technologies, electronics and aerospace, defence and security, data sciences, and natural resources exploration.
Particle accelerators also have a proven capability in life-saving medical isotopes. TRIUMF is a world leader in this endeavour, and this is the area on which I will focus this morning. TRIUMF's history with medical isotopes dates back decades. Together with Nordion, we produce more than two million doses of medical isotopes per year that are shipped to patients in over a dozen countries. It is an enormously successful public-private partnership, one of which Canada should be proud. Beyond this, TRIUMF helped pioneer PET imaging in Canada and today supports the diagnosis and treatment of diseases ranging from cancer to Parkinson's. We are, in fact, the only proton therapy treatment centre in Canada.
TRIUMF is the hub of an innovation cluster that includes clinical and academic partners, with an industrial base that has commercialized our technology and made it available to the world. The value of this cluster came to light in 2007 and 2009, following NRU shutdowns that resulted in global shortages of technetium, a critical medical isotope used in 80% of nuclear medicine scans. Facing this crisis, the federal government launched the ITAP program to develop alternatives to the reactor-based production of technetium.
A TRIUMF-led consortium rose to the challenge and developed a new technology that produces technetium using medical accelerators. Our solution is environmentally friendly and enables locally sourced production of technetium, ensuring isotope independence for any region or country that adopts it. TRIUMF's technology was recognized with NSERC's prestigious Brockhouse prize, presented by Governor General David Johnston in February 2015. It is currently in the final stages of Health Canada review, and full regulatory approval is expected in late 2017. TRIUMF's innovative technology is now licensed to a spinoff company, and there is growing interest from international markets.
All this achievement and early promise, however, might well come to naught. The reality is that TRIUMF's technology is struggling to take root because of a lack of government leadership on the medical isotope file. With the end of ITAP, and the cessation of isotope production at the NRU, NRCan has decided to close its file. No one else has stepped up to claim ownership, so the isotope file is an orphan.
This brings us to where we are now—at a critical crossroads. With strong stewardship from the federal government, Canada is well positioned to extend its lead in medical isotope technologies, but without such a commitment, Canada will miss the opportunity, risk another supply shortage, and lose the capacity and expertise we have assembled over decades.
Our proposed institute for advanced medical isotopes, or IAMI, will ensure that Canada stays at the cutting edge. Details about IAMI are contained in the brief that we submitted to the clerk. Championed by TRIUMF, the BC Cancer Agency, the University of British Columbia, and Simon Fraser University, IAMI is a facility that will strengthen Canada's capacity in nuclear medicine for both research and clinical use.
On the one hand, IAMI will provide a reliable supply of the life-saving technetium isotope. It will demonstrate TRIUMF's technetium technology and serve as a model that can be replicated across Canada and around the world. On the other hand, IAMI will future-proof Canada's medical isotope R and D. Leveraging the experience and the unique capabilities of TRIUMF, IAMI will produce next-generation isotopes, many of which have tremendous therapeutic potential for treating cancer and other diseases. In fact, TRIUMF is one of the few places in the world capable of producing large quantities of these therapeutic isotopes. IAMI will provide the necessary infrastructure to ensure that Canada remains at the centre of this fast-moving and innovative field.
Despite this great promise, IAMI and initiatives like it are falling through the cracks. TRIUMF is working to build Canada's future in nuclear medicine, but we cannot do it alone. The federal government, and parliamentarians like you, must decide whether Canada should continue to play a leadership role in this sector. The benefits are many, but without clarity, commitment, and leadership from the federal government, we risk letting our position slip away.
Canada's work in nuclear research and development generates many advantages. We encourage the committee to take into account the contributions we can make to nuclear medicine today and in the years to come.
I'd be happy to answer questions when you have the time.
Thank you.
