Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank both of you for coming.
My home province is New Brunswick. I'm from the western part of New Brunswick, which is probably one of the only landlocked ridings in the east coast. I don't have access to tidal, of course, but tidal is going to play a very large contributing factor to our renewable sector on the east coast. I understand the challenges that we face in New Brunswick, and right now we have a significant challenge with building a generating station. We're looking at where we're going in the future, and the select committee on climate change in New Brunswick identified an action plan that would see us off coal in New Brunswick by 2030, or 2040 at the very latest, but that would have to be under a very stringent set of guidelines that would guide that.
From the Conservation Council of New Brunswick, Lois Corbett and Louise Comeau, two people from my riding who are very passionate about renewables, have endorsed that plan. I think Louise Comeau has even said that she feels that it's one of the most proactive prospective plans that she has seen so far across the country. They've both identified Point Lepreau in New Brunswick as playing a contributing factor at this point to getting where we need to go in the short term, just as they have agreed that hydroelectricity plays a role in where we need to go in the short term.
I have the Mactaquac generating station in my riding. I understand the challenges around Mactaquac and in the refurbishment of it as well, which makes the refurbishment costs at Point Lepreau look minute because of the large scale. I have been in favour there of an option that hasn't been really touted too much, which is the idea of an in situ refurbishment at Mactaquac. That would extend the life of that generating station by up to 40 years. I've been in favour of that because I believe that our energy spectrum could look significantly different 40 years from now than it does right today. I recognize that, and when you talk about SMRs, I'm open to just about everything right now. I agree that we need to have increased investment in renewables and clean tech.
Actually, Mr. Stensil, you'll be happy to know that we are fully intending to do a clean tech study, I think, in the new part of the year, which will give greater focus to that.
At the same time, I'm open to looking at the SMR option. The reason I'm open to looking at it—and I'm not saying that I'm sold on it or not sold on it—is that when you talk about rural northern communities, especially ones that are isolated, and you talk about an integrated renewal grid in those areas, I think that's great, and it's definitely going to take into account solar, and wind, and possibly submersible hydroelectricity. In the north it's quite cold, so I'm assuming we won't have a lot of conventional hydroelectricity generation, but we could have submersible generators, which we've seen used in Europe some, that would provide that generation load for those communities.
I think the reason you've heard so much talk about SMRs is that potentially we're still going to need baseload generation, no matter what, and you're going to need baseload generation in those communities. I'm not saying they're a viable alternative to diesel generation, and I'm not saying they're not a viable alternative to diesel generation. I'm just saying that I'm not discounting them based on the history of a different design of reactor, and I'm not discounting them based on the belief that renewables will 100% eclipse traditional generation. I do believe the future is in renewables, and I do believe we're going to get there. I just don't believe it's going to happen overnight, and that's the issue I have.
I want to ask you, Mr. Edwards, about the 23,000 litres of, I'm assuming, spent fuel that they're talking about transferring to the United States. Isn't that part of a....not a decommissioning, but they're going to reuse that fuel and blend it down so that it's not nuclear grade? Isn't that the idea? I thought the reason they couldn't ship it as solid was that you can't do anything with it once you encapsulate it.