Evidence of meeting #14 for Science and Research in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was technology.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Kirsty Duncan
Mr. Bradley, I'm sorry to do this to you. It's the worst part of this. I apologize.
Mr. Soroka, thank you.
With that, we will go to Mr. McKinnon for five minutes, please.
June 2nd, 2022 / 9:25 p.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Thank you, Chair, and thank you to all of the witnesses for being here.
We have talked with all of our panellists tonight, largely about implementation and commercialization issues. I really would like to get to the science of this. I'm wondering if our witnesses have any insight into where we should be putting our research efforts to move the dial on the science.
Where do we need to advance the science to make small modular reactors or any of this technology more effective and more viable, sooner?
I'll start with Mr. Diening.
9:25 p.m.
Managing Director, Global First Power
Madam Chair, thank you to the member for that question.
For Global First Power, our real differentiator is the fuel. A lot of our safety story is around the FCM fuel, for which we are building a manufacturing facility at Chalk River. The research really is around proving that the fuel story is as we expect it to be. Focusing on that would really significantly help us get to fuel manufacturing more quickly, which would allow us to get our plant online even more quickly.
9:25 p.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Bradley, perhaps you can give us some insight as well.
9:25 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Electricity Canada
Sure. We have emerging technologies. We have some that are very close to demonstration. In my view, what we need to be thinking about now is how in the next several years, once we get to demonstration and implementation, our focus then needs to shift to how we are going to be able to manufacture in an effective manner.
We need to be able to get to a place where Wright's law can come into play. As we begin manufacturing and doing multiples of the same unit—much of this work in the past in the nuclear space was bespoke, one-off projects—we need to get into a world where we can start driving the costs down very significantly by manufacturing multiples of the same unit.
9:25 p.m.
Acting President and Chief Executive Officer, SaskPower
I would agree. For the first SMRs that go into production, starting with OPG, it's critical that the project go well and that we get a lot of learning from that. As Mr. Bradley has mentioned, from there I think the success of the SMR here in Canada and Canada's success in reducing its carbon footprint will be on how we're able to maximize the efficiency in terms of the construction and operation of these SMRs. As you mentioned, it will be critical to put our investment into ensuring that we learn as quickly as we possibly can from the first ones and drive that cost down so that it is a sustainable option for us going forward.
9:30 p.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
I think Mr. Diening hit closest to the mark that I was looking for. Talking about fuel, for example, do we need to put more research into different fission processes, different sequences of radioisotopes and their secondary production in existing processes to get more out of the processes and maybe to find more energy and newer technology directions?
Mr. Diening, perhaps you'd like to expand on that a bit.
9:30 p.m.
Managing Director, Global First Power
Global First Power is an owner-operator. We're not a technology company per se. Our focus is on getting this next evolution in the fuel right and on getting that done correctly. After that, we can look at expanding to different forms of fuel or different forms of generating power.
To loop back to your first question, we're laser focused on finishing this first commercial demonstrator, but I think the next big thing we need to do is to learn how to manufacture these plants at scale and really build a lot of them, because there's a huge demand for them throughout Ontario, especially in the north.
Focusing the science on how we modularize and how we build these faster, ensuring that we keep the quality and safety are, I think, things that will really benefit Global First Power.
9:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Kirsty Duncan
Thank you so much to Mr. McKinnon and Mr. Diening. We have a hard stop tonight, but I'm going to give a very brief question each to Mr. Canning and Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas. I would suggest that they ask for written answers, because it will be a hard stop.
Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas.
9:30 p.m.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Mr. Bradley, if possible, please send to us additional data on the questions I asked you earlier on the energy transition and the possibility of deploying small modular reactor technology while remaining competitive internationally.
Mr. King, I would be interested—
9:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Kirsty Duncan
You had one question, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.
Thank you, my friend.
Mr. Cannings, you have one question too. It's a hard stop.
9:30 p.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
This is one question, and it's for Mr. King and Mr. Bradley.
Regarding the narrative we hear that the reason we need more nuclear is because it is this baseload power, I'm wondering about the development of better provincial interties. Would that be one of the options that Saskatchewan is considering? Is it one of those things that we need to consider nationally as a major way of providing baseload power to provinces that don't have clean power now?
9:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Kirsty Duncan
Thank you, Mr. Cannings.
Thank you to our witnesses for your time and expertise. We are most grateful. We hope you've had a good experience tonight.
I thank everyone who supports this committee.
To my dear colleagues on this committee, thank you for all of your work.
Good night, everyone. The meeting is adjourned.