Science and Research Committee on June 2nd, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Dear colleagues, I call us to order.

Welcome to our witnesses. We are meeting in a webcast session.

Welcome to meeting number 14 of the Standing Committee on Science and Research.

The Board of Internal Economy requires that committees adhere to the following health protocols, which are in effect until June 23, 2022. All individuals wishing to enter the parliamentary precinct must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. All those attending the meeting in person must wear a mask, except for members who are in their place during proceedings. Please contact the clerk of the committee—and we're delighted to have Cédric tonight—for further information on preventive measures for health and safety.

As the chair, I will enforce these measures, and as always, thank you for your co-operation.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021.

I'd like to outline a few rules to follow. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You may speak in the official language of your choice. At the bottom of your screen, you may choose to hear floor audio, English, or French. The “raise hand” feature is on the main toolbar, should you wish to speak.

I remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

When you are not speaking, your microphone should be muted. The committee clerk and I will maintain a speaking list for all members.

To our witnesses tonight, welcome. We're delighted to have you. This is a new committee, science and research, and this is our third study on small modular nuclear reactors.

In our first of three panels tonight, we have, in person, John Gorman, president and chief executive officer, from the Canadian Nuclear Association. From Moltex Energy, we have Rory O'Sullivan, chief executive officer for North America; and from Ontario Tech University, we have Kirk Atkinson, associate professor and director, Centre for Small Modular Reactors.

Welcome to all.

Each of you will have five minutes to speak. At the four and a half minute mark, I will hold up a yellow card, and you will have 30 seconds to finish.

We will begin with John Gorman from the Canadian Nuclear Association.

The floor is yours. Welcome.

[John Gorman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Nuclear Association]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First and foremost, I acknowledge that I'm joining you today from and on the traditional and unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe.

I thank the committee for inviting me to appear today on behalf of the Canadian Nuclear Association.

I am the president and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Association, which is made up of almost 100 companies across the full nuclear energy supply chain in Canada. Our membership is keen to build upon over 60 years of expertise and experience in order to help Canada in meeting its goals for energy security, sustainability and affordability.

These goals have become even more important for Canada and other countries over these past months, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resultant global energy crisis. Canada represents a viable option for strategic low-carbon commodities to fill the gaps and ensure energy security, and nuclear technologies will help deliver on that.

We're encouraged to see this committee's enthusiasm to learn more about small modular reactors—or SMRs for short—given the critical role that we expect this technology will be playing in ensuring national energy security and a net-zero future in Canada and elsewhere.

Canada is emerging as a global leader in the development and deployment of SMR technologies, and we're attracting the interest of key countries around the world. Efforts to promote Canada as the future of SMRs have been coordinated between a set of key utilities. You're going to be hearing from the CEOs later this evening and, of course, they are from Ontario Power Generation, New Brunswick Power, Bruce Power and SaskPower. Together with the CNA, we've created this pan-Canadian SMR initiative.

SMRs are said to be a part of the clean energy efforts by Canadian provinces, including Saskatchewan, Alberta, New Brunswick and Ontario, to meet their climate goals while enabling the reduction of carbon emissions in key sectors such as resource extraction, heavy industry, transportation and buildings. These provinces recently signed an MOU to develop SMR opportunities to meet their respective economic and environmental goals.

SMRs are also a viable option for northern, remote and indigenous communities seeking to replace diesel with a supply of clean and reliable energy.

The past few months have seen significant momentum in the industry to expand this technology. As the committee will learn later this evening with the CEOs of the four utilities, SMRs will be connected to the grid much sooner than many people understand. OPG's Darlington unit will be connected to the grid by 2028. Very small reactors, which are potentially of particular importance to indigenous communities that are considering clean energy options for their economic and social development goals, are anticipated to be online potentially before 2028.

To give a better sense of the technology, SMRs provide stable baseload clean energy that can complement variable renewables like wind and solar. There are three streams of SMRs designed to serve various challenges.

First, SMRs are a source of clean electricity, and that can help to meet the dramatic two to three times electricity generation we're going to require, as has been forecasted to 2050, in our net-zero future.

Second, advanced SMRs offer a combined source of clean electricity and clean, high-temperature heat, which is known as cogeneration. This is important for applications such as resource extraction, for production of clean fuels such as hydrogen and ammonia, for heavy industry in the production of products like steel, cement and aluminum, and for use in mining.

Finally, micro or very small modular reactors can displace diesel generation in remote communities.

To conclude, SMRs will play a critical role in helping Canada and the world meet their unique energy needs.

Now, we have an ask of the federal government, given what we see as a critically important role for SMRs in the future of Canada's energy system. In a nutshell, we are asking for explicit, continued and consistent support of SMRs and nuclear energy in clean energy initiatives and policies—consistent support.

This should include efforts to explicitly champion the technology as a viable solution and to bolster and streamline funding programs to help with SMR demonstration projects; continued collaboration between industry and government; and support for the pan-Canadian SMR development integrated funding ask that we have before the strategic innovation fund.

In closing, I want to thank you again for asking me to speak today and showing your interest in this important topic. We are confident that this next generation of nuclear reactor will not only deliver upon Canada's climate commitments but also position the country as a world leader in this innovative technology.

I look forward to addressing questions, should they come my way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you so much, Mr. Gorman. We appreciate your being here.

Now I'm going to Ontario Tech University and Dr. Atkinson for five minutes, please.

[Dr. Kirk Atkinson, Associate Professor and Director, Centre for Small Modular Reactors, Ontario Tech University]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Unhindered by wind speed or cloud cover, nuclear power at all scales is able to meet baseload energy needs 24-7, on 365 days of the year. In Ontario we do this already, with 18 large CANDU reactors generating about 60% of Ontario's electricity with among the lowest CO2 emissions in the world. In a few short years, after more than 50 years of providing low-carbon electricity to Ontario, Pickering Nuclear will be retired, having achieved some of its best-ever performance in the last decade of its life, thanks to continuous innovation in nuclear technologies.

Ontario will need to replace about 15% of its electricity baseload, which is expected to come primarily from natural gas, and it will lose its enviable place in the world as one of the lowest-emitting jurisdictions. This regrettable situation can be alleviated in full or in part by the early 2030s through deployment of small modular reactors, nuclear reactors that generate usable powers of 300 megawatts electrical or less. In fact, Ontario Power Generation is already working towards that, with its first SMR from GE Hitachi expected to come online in 2028. It's a good first step.

SMRs can play a significant role in helping Canada reach net zero if government creates conditions that promote their deployment. SMRs are most often just an evolution of an existing reactor design, even those that involve newer concepts or fuels built on a solid foundation of research and development. For more than 50 years, a small number of nations around the world have been designing, building, operating and decommissioning small reactors within their naval fleets.

Away from prying eyes, several of these reactor types are similar and/or of comparable thermal power to SMR designs in vendor design review with the CNSC. Moreover, in the U.K., Rolls-Royce has been building light water reactors in its factories for decades. It's not magic; Canada can do this too.

As one of very few tier 1 nuclear nations, Canada's extensive nuclear supply chain is eminently capable of building and maintaining SMRs. Should we so desire, wherever you currently see a power station fuelled by coal, oil or natural gas, it is likely that an SMR or series of SMRs could be a clean, slot-in replacement for it. Given that they have been designed with intrinsic safety features that do not require human intervention, SMRs will be even safer to operate than earlier generation power reactors. This fact, together with their individually smaller radiological inventories—the amount of nuclear and radiological material they contain—means that any consequences to the public and the environment are effectively zero, should a highly improbable event happen. This makes the traditional concept of large site boundaries and emergency planning zones a thing of the past.

Despite all the advantages of SMRs, it is important that advocates for them be truthful. SMRs, like all nuclear reactors, will produce a small amount of radioactive waste per energy emitted. For some people, this is a red line, but we must ask ourselves this honestly: What is the bigger risk? Is it better to generate resilient, clean energy where the resultant waste volumes are small and well managed or to make greenhouse gases and accept the devastating consequences of climate change? There is no free lunch.

The consequences of burning coal are well known, and oil and gas, while working to decarbonize through new technologies and methods, have a long road to go and may never be carbon-neutral. Taken over their complete lifetimes, wind turbines, solar panels and batteries all produce waste, and some of them can cause harm. We forget this, as we don't yet require their vendors and operators to manage waste in as costly and robust a manner as the nuclear industry. It is not a level playing field. Fortunately, we have over a century's worth of knowledge in health physics and radiation science and have been applying it to the safe storage of nuclear waste since World War II. Being an early adopter of SMRs, Canada is in an ideal position to become a world leader in developing lucrative new and novel technologies for the management of SMR wastes.

The postpandemic recovery and recent events in Ukraine have demonstrated the fragility in the global energy market. Nations with mal-intent are now able to hold their neighbours hostage through threats of turning off their supply while driving up the price of gas at the pump here in Canada.

SMRs provide energy security while creating highly skilled, high-paying jobs. In Saskatchewan, we are blessed with the abundant uranium reserves needed by SMR vendors across the Western world. In Alberta, oil and gas workers can be assured of long-term job security by re-skilling for the SMR-generated process heat economy in hydrogen and alternative fuels. Our coastal provinces could become pioneers in desalination technologies that may be exported to water-scarce countries, and—particularly close to my heart, given shipping is essential to global trade and also a major emitter of greenhouse gases—shipbuilding provinces like Quebec could become powerhouses in nuclear propulsion by tooling up shipyards to install SMRs in ships that other nations recognize could propel a green revolution in shipping.

Clearly, to embrace this once in a half-century opportunity requires a much larger workforce than exists now, along with new skills and knowledge.

Ontario Tech University, home to Canada's only undergraduate program in nuclear engineering, stands ready with colleagues at universities and colleges across the land to deliver this education and training.

In tandem with this, demonstrated commitment to new nuclear from government in the long term will give confidence to our young people when making career choices. To date, the government has been very proactive in empowering NRCan to develop road maps and plans, and in providing innovation funding to vendors for their design work.

However, leadership needs more. It's not a question of if Canada should—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Dr. Atkinson, I'm sorry to interrupt. The worst part of this is having to interrupt when you're giving your testimony. I know our members will follow up with questions.

Thank you.

We are now going to go to Mr. O'Sullivan. I have to say that we're having technical difficulties. It's not possible to use the headset provided, so we will try, but this committee has to have both official languages, so if we can't hear him, unfortunately, we won't be able to continue with the testimony.

Mr. O'Sullivan, let's give it a try. The floor is yours.

[Rory O'Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer, North America, Moltex Energy]

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for the opportunity to appear—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Mr. O'Sullivan, I'm really sorry, but the interpreters cannot hear you at all. That's why we have to use the headset provided.

Are you going to try it one more time?

[Rory O'Sullivan]

I'll try the headset and do a final test.

Is this okay?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

We're good to go. That's terrific.

Mr. O'Sullivan, welcome, the floor is yours.

[Rory O'Sullivan]

Thank you for the opportunity to appear today. I’m coming to you from Saint John, New Brunswick, which is the traditional, unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik, Mi’kmaq and Peskotomuhkati peoples.

I’m Rory O’Sullivan, CEO for North America at Moltex Energy. Moltex is developing a suite of reactor technologies, including a stable salt reactor-wasteburner, or SSR-W, which uses recycled nuclear waste as its fuel source; a waste to stable salt, or WATSS, facility for recycling nuclear waste; and GridReserve thermal energy storage tanks, so our reactor can act as a peaking plant to complement intermittent renewables.

Moltex was founded in the U.K. in 2014. In 2016, we analyzed all of the places we could deploy our reactor technology and decided that Canada was the best option.

In 2018, we were selected by NB Power from among nearly 100 applicants to deploy our technology in New Brunswick, with the goal of demonstrating first-of-a-kind units next to the Point Lepreau nuclear generating station. That year, we moved our head office to New Brunswick, where we’ve been focused on design and R and D. We’ve developed meaningful partnerships with first nations groups and built a great team, whom we’re very proud of.

In February of last year, Moltex was the very grateful recipient of $50 million in federal funding to continue developing our technology. As part of the terms, we moved all of our IP to Canada. We have also been fortunate to receive funding from the Province of New Brunswick, Ontario Power Generation and many different private investors.

Unlike other nuclear reactors, which use uranium as fuel, our reactor is specifically designed to consume the recycled spent fuel from other reactors. In doing so, we can reduce the volume of long-lived, high-level waste by over 95%. We have the only SMR technology that does not require imported fuel, as it can be fuelled solely by nuclear waste that is already in the country. In Canada, by the time the CANDU fleet reaches end of life, there will be enough spent fuel to power 6,000 megawatts of our reactors. That’s enough to power five million homes.

Globally, the market is about 20 times larger than Canada, and we're the only vendor targeting this market. There are several customers in the U.S. and Europe who have expressed interest in second-of-a-kind units since the first one has been demonstrated in New Brunswick.

This is a huge opportunity. A recent study showed that between 2030 and 2060, a global rollout of the two new reactors in New Brunswick—ours and the one that ARC Canada is developing—will create approximately 500,000 work-year jobs, $60 billion in GDP and $5 billion in government revenue.

At this time, we are conducting critical research and development activities to validate our technology. This work is being carried out at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, the University of New Brunswick, various U.S. labs—cofunded by the U.S.—and at our own laboratory.

We have completed phase one of the CNSC's vendor design review and are preparing for phase two. We have recently partnered with SNC-Lavalin, an international leader in the field and the only company in Canada to have its design licensed through the CNSC. This additional expertise will help ensure that we are successful.

In summary, we are committed to Canada and pleased with the progress here. However, we would like to see more consistent support for nuclear, given its essential role in meeting the country’s net-zero goals. Environmental regulatory changes implemented since we picked Canada have extended our deployment time here by about three years. Meanwhile, political commitment to nuclear in the U.K. and the U.S. have shortened deployment times there.

For Canada to maintain its leadership in this sector, we would encourage the federal government to take a stronger leadership role to ensure we meet our climate targets and stay competitive.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you very much, Mr. O'Sullivan.

We're glad that we were able to get this sorted so you could present to us. We have a tremendous committee that is really interested in hearing from you.

We are now going to go to our round of questioning, beginning with a six-minute round.

Mr. Tochor, the floor is yours.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here tonight.

I would like to start off in Ontario, with Mr. Gorman.

With regard to the phase-out of coal on the Ontario grid, could you unpack the net results, in terms of smog days being reduced, and how Ontario was able to accomplish that?

[John Gorman]

This is a good-news story that Ontarians and Canadians don't speak about loudly enough at home or on the international stage. Phasing out coal-fired electricity generation in Ontario is the single largest carbon-reduction initiative that has been achieved in North America, if not the world, and it was done on the backs of incremental nuclear. Ninety per cent of the coal-fired electricity generation was replaced by our CANDU generating stations here in Ontario. When we look at the pure amount of clean electricity that is produced 24-7 as baseload power as a viable replacement for coal-fired electricity, nuclear can't be beat.

If I may give you just one additional bit of information, in the United States and increasingly here in Canada, there's a very important initiative under way, called Powering Past Coal. That is looking at the ability to take both conventional reactors and the developing small modular reactors and actually place them on sites where the coal-fired generating stations used to be, to enable the same sorts of economic job profiles and benefits but using clean power instead of coal. It's a very exciting trend that we're seeing worldwide.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Absolutely. They are concrete steps if we want to actually reduce emissions. We have lots of virtue signalling from some people about what it'll take to actually reduce emissions, and nuclear has proven that in Ontario for everyone to see.

I still run into environmentalists—not the normal environmentalists who are concerned about climate change and who want to reduce it, but the extreme ones—who are not excited about nuclear. What would you say to these extreme environmentalists in that regard?

[John Gorman]

I've been with the nuclear industry now for three and a half years, but my history of over two decades in electricity has been in the renewables space, specifically as a developer of solar projects, sitting on boards with utilities, helping to guide renewables, as Canada's representative to the International Energy Agency for solar, and as the head of the Solar Industries Association for seven and a half years, where I worked with my colleagues to merge the wind and solar associations. I'm a big proponent of intermittent renewables, wind and solar.

I have to say that when I started in solar over 20 years ago, we were at 36% non-emitting electricity on the world's grids. Despite the billions of dollars of investment in wind and solar, despite the enormous rollout and the cost declines in wind and solar, we're still at 36% non-emitting on the world's electricity grids. Now, wind and solar have helped to keep us on a level playing field despite population growth around the world, but what's clear is that nuclear needs a clean partner that can produce that 24-7 baseload power. If our choices are coal-fired electricity and gas-fired electricity, and if that's the reason we're not making progress on reducing the amount of fossil fuels on the world's grids, it's because we need to bring in more nuclear to act as that partner for renewables. I can tell you that the small modular reactors are very responsive, very flexible and able to help support wind and solar. The deployment of more nuclear across Canada could help expand wind and solar.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Mr. Gorman, could you unpack this a little? I've heard other people state that we are not going to reach our 2050 goals without nuclear. Are you in the camp that believes nuclear has to be part of that mix?

[John Gorman]

Without a doubt, nuclear—both conventional and small modular reactors—will necessarily have to be a very important part of the global energy mix as we go forward.

Electricity generation, as you know, Mr. Tochor, is exceedingly important to decarbonization. We're going to have to double or triple the amount of electricity generation we have in this world. This is a math problem. It's not a theology problem. We have to get away from picking a favourite technology and realize that we need everything at our disposal in order to meet this challenge.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Every energy source has negatives. The one perception that may not be reality is at the waste end of things. In the last 10 years, have there been any recorded deaths related to nuclear waste in Canada?

[John Gorman]

Canada has an exceptional track record that is respected internationally for the way it manages the entire cycle of every bit of waste it produces. I'm not aware of any fatality from handling the waste here in Canada or, indeed, around the world.

There's a reason for that, Mr. Tochor. It's because managing spent fuel is straightforward, and the nuclear industry takes it very seriously. We produce very little waste, we can account for it all, and we prepay for its safe storage and management.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

What percentage of that waste is actually used? The energy we remove from that nuclear material—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

I'm sorry, Mr. Tochor. Would you like to ask for a written response?

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

I would ask for a written response on what percentage of the energy is left in the waste afterwards.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Mr. Tochor.

We'll now go to Mr. Collins for six minutes.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks, Madam Chair, and thanks to the witnesses for appearing this evening. I'm going to start with Mr. Gorman.

A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Gorman, I listened to you on a podcast on my five-and-a-half-hour drive home to Hamilton. You were talking about the benefits of SMRs. There were some counterpoints given to you. I want to dig a bit deeper into some of the discussion you had on that episode.

As a long-time municipal councillor, I know there's always an element of push-back from neighbours, the community and stakeholders when we deal with applications, whether it's for waste, companies coming to town with a new technology, electricity, or energy from waste facilities, which is the common one I've had to deal with over the years. Oftentimes, people can be quite critical of things that are new. For me, the question is, with this technology.... Again, we're hearing dates of 2028, 2030 and even beyond, in some cases. I think the counterpoint to you, that day I listened to the podcast, was that SMRs are an expensive science experiment. I think the lady who was on with you referred to them in that way. Some in the community might go down that path, at some point in time.

My question to you is, what role does government play from an education standpoint? At some point in time, you'll be dealing with stakeholders. These facilities and SMRs will be a part of our life, from an energy perspective, with the benefits you just talked about. You and others will be making these presentations in front of very large crowds and communities with environmental stakeholders, who will put up their hands and provide some push-back. I guess the question I have is, what role does the government play in terms of assisting with education efforts and dispelling some of the myths that have come about over the last number of years as SMRs are talked about, either in mainstream media or small communities in different parts of Canada?

[John Gorman]

The short answer I'll give off the bat is this: The most important thing government can do, when it comes to new technologies we're using to confront the climate crisis and lower GHGs, is to be consistent. Be consistent in talking about the tools we are going to use to tackle this crisis. While the federal government—your government—has made significant progress, especially over the last short number of years, in identifying nuclear and small modular reactors as essential parts of a net-zero future, we see how that language is not being used consistently by all policy-makers. It is not being applied consistently with various financial and tax incentives we see coming out of this government, including the most recent green bond framework, tax incentives and rapid amortization measures that have been extended to other clean technologies.

If we want investors, industry, academia and the whole nuclear ecosystem to be able to deliver on its full potential, we're going to need a strong, consistent signal from all levels of government that nuclear is needed for a clean, net-zero future.

When I started in solar just over 20 years ago, that is exactly what they called solar: an “expensive science experiment”. I find it ironic that some of the people who are the biggest proponents of solar are now looking at small modular reactors and calling them an “expensive science experiment”. We are a handful of years away from deploying various technologies that will demonstrate that if we can put them out and they can deliver on the promise of mass production, which small modular reactors are promising to do from a price standpoint, we're going to see, the same way we saw with wind turbines and solar panels, that the cost is going to come down very dramatically, and it will be a very important tool.