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.