Science and Research Committee on June 9th, 2022

[Dr. Jeremy Rayner]

Certainly. I think you are, of course, correct that in terms of the amounts of fissionable materials and the amounts of radioactivity that might be released and so forth as the result of an accident from a small reactor, the advocates of small reactors are quite correct that they are very different from what we would see with a very large reactor.

What I think we have to consider with small reactors, as I mentioned in my remarks, is that we have, for the reasons we talked about already, we tend to build large reactors away from people. We tend to build large reactors if we can't build them a long way away from people, with very large exclusion zones to protect people from the consequences of an accident.

If small modular reactors are to fulfill their promise for the various applications that are being proposed for them, they will have to be very close to people.

I'd like to ask the members of the committee here to consider a thought experiment. I walked to the meeting this evening through the massive construction that's going on everywhere, as you do, I'm sure, every day. I walked past a shipping container that was humming slightly. I imagine it had some air conditioning in it or something of that kind, and I thought nothing of it. Imagine if that was a small nuclear reactor of the kind we heard described in the last session that would fit in a shipping container and that it was on an Ottawa street, as some proponents of small reactors have proposed, and propose, I think, in very interesting ways. I think there are things that SMRs can do for us that big reactors can't do.

There, I think, we would have to consider very carefully not just the objective risk of what's in there and what would happen if there was an accident but also the subjective perceptions of people who would be asked to walk backwards and forwards around that every day.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

As you heard, the person from Westinghouse spoke of a microreactor that comprises three storage containers. Is that where we're heading, or might they be even smaller with, say, microreactors going down the road that we could use on ships, trains and so forth?

[Dr. Jeremy Rayner]

Again, one of the very interesting things about SMRs, which I'm sure this committee has gone into in some detail, is the huge range of applications, from pushing the envelope of an SMR with over 300 megawatts to put on the grid and putting it on a site that's already licensed for nuclear and so on, down to those that are very small. In those, for example, we might deal with some of the very energy-intensive needs of future urban development by having SMRs in that urban development as new SMRs, as the development grows.

If we're going to power electric cars and have connectivity on the scale that advocates are talking about, we'll need electricity, and we'll need lots of it.

I think what's really interesting about SMRs is not that they can replace large nuclear or large baseload power capacity, but that they can find all sorts of different kinds of applications. Those different applications, I think, ought to cause us to ask hard questions about risk and risk perception.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Excellent. Thank you, Doctor.

I know we're going to be short of time tonight, so I'm going to defer the rest of my time back to the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

That's very generous of you, Mr. McKinnon. Thank you for that.

We will go to Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I welcome the witnesses joining us for the third hour of our meeting.

My first questions are for Mr. Rayner.

Mr. Rayner, I noted that you’re currently conducting a comparative study on the development and implementation of small modular reactors in Canada and the United Kingdom. Can you tell us more about your findings?

[Dr. Jeremy Rayner]

Certainly. Thank you for the question.

The U.K. and much of the rest of Europe are also interested in SMRs, and for the same reason as Canada. They have mature nuclear industries, they have a great deal of expertise and they had very little prospect, until recently, of very large new nuclear builds. SMRs were an obvious way of keeping that scientific expertise active and alive, and recruiting new people into it. It fits that innovation agenda and the science establishment agenda.

However, as people began to investigate what SMRs could do, people have become genuinely interested, as I said, in these different applications from power grid-level SMRs. We see, for example, in Finland, interest like there is in Canada, for northern and remote applications of very small reactors. We see it in France, which began, in fact, by being very opposed to the idea of SMRs and stuck with the large reactors they have. Again, there's an interest in SMRs because of the different things they can do.

I think there are many reasons why people in Europe are interested in SMRs.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Rayner.

Suppose Canada chooses to pursue the development of small modular reactors. In your view, what changes should be made to the legislative framework around them and, more specifically, to the governance of their radioactive waste?

[Dr. Jeremy Rayner]

Yes, the nuclear waste question is a very interesting one, because as we know...until now, we have stored nuclear waste on site. When you have relatively few relatively large reactors, that is a solution for a long time. The question then of how we will deal with the waste that is dispersed across a wide variety of smaller sites is problematic.

We heard Westinghouse talk about just removing its modules and taking them back, but they still have to dispose of what's in there. Moving that waste to.... Let's assume that in Canada we are successful, as I hope we are, in having a deep geological repository for waste, moving the waste there is going to raise some very interesting covenants and policy questions, not least the indigenous questions that I mentioned, and not least the fact that New Brunswick waste would have to travel across Quebec in order to get to the repository in Ontario.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Rayner.

In your opinion, is Canada currently doing enough to protect its citizens from the dangers of nuclear waste, and how does it compare with similar countries?

[Dr. Jeremy Rayner]

I think we have a reasonable record in terms of protection. Again, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has worked on this. I myself have done some work on the dangers of low levels of radiation, and policy and regulation around that are quite strong.

Remember, of course, that radiation does not just come from nuclear power or the waste from nuclear power. It is experienced every day by technicians who are doing medical treatments, by people working in dentists' offices and so forth, and we have, I think, a well-developed regulatory scheme here. What we have to do, I think, is not give way to the suggestion that the need for speed in the deployment of SMRs should allow us to relax or change the regulatory framework.

In my mind, that's the danger. It's not the danger that what we have is not enough. The danger is that we may be tempted to reduce the protections we currently have.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Rayner.

I would like to know what you think of the arguments in favour of small modular reactors, specifically the economic model. By simplifying their design and standardizing their components, they could be mass-produced. That would make it possible to achieve economies of scale.

Do you know how many small modular reactors it would take to achieve economies of scale and get a return on initial development costs? I know that several other countries, such as the United States and Russia, will want to develop this technology and sell it abroad. It’s going to be difficult for Canada, whose diplomatic strength might not be enough to win against highly competitive countries.

[Dr. Jeremy Rayner]

That's a very important question and, you know, I'm neither an economist nor do I have access to the information that companies have about costs. In fact, they don't even have very strong information right now until they build one.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Might I interrupt and make a suggestion, Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas? Since that's the end of your time, would you like Professor Rayner to give you a written answer?

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Yes. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Okay, thank you, Professor Rayner.

Thank you to you both.

We will now go to Mr. Cannings for six minutes.

The floor is yours.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you to all of the witnesses.

I'd like to continue with Dr. Rayner just to follow up on his comments on the need for good public engagement, in particular around the free, prior and informed consent that you mentioned with first nations.

We have a situation, for instance, at Chalk River, where the Kebaowek first nation is.... I don't want to speak for them, but they clearly seem very, very concerned about what's going on at Chalk River without their consent. They want a complete, new review of how nuclear waste is dealt with in Canada. They have really made the point that they have not been adequately involved in the past nor in the present in this. We have the first nations Chiefs of Ontario coming out with a very strong statement against the use of this narrative of using SMRs on remote first nations communities as one of the first uses of this technology.

I was interested to hear your comments that we shouldn't rush into this. I keep thinking of how a lot of our previous energy policies were rushed and then delayed because of the lack of proper consultation with first nations in particular. In that rush to get pipelines built, etc., we ended up having them delayed because the courts got involved, and it was found that consultation hadn't occurred properly.

Could you follow up on as to whether we're kind of rushing into this and not putting a good foot forward in the SMR field with regards to first nations especially?

[Dr. Jeremy Rayner]

Thank you.

Those are very important questions, but I'd like to distinguish between those kinds of questions with respect to first nations that arise because of previous developments. There are legacies of poor engagement. On Chalk River, I'm afraid that I don't know enough to say whether that's the case.

We have to remember that in the past, of course—and this is the case in northern Saskatchewan—uranium mining was undertaken very quickly as a matter of national security in the 1940s and 1950s, and it took a very long time for that legacy to be overcome, but I have to say that Cameco is a world leader in indigenous engagement, and it shows that it is in fact possible to remedy the mistakes of the past and to regain trust from indigenous people.

New projects with SMRs I think are interesting. Some of the work we've done that has been funded by the Fedoruk centre has suggested actually some very significant interest from indigenous people in terms of the energy poverty and energy insecurity that many of those indigenous nations encounter on a daily basis, but they wish to understand more about the technology first. They wish to know exactly what they're getting themselves into and they wish to know, as you say, answers to questions like what's going to happen to this material when it's spent and what's going to happen to the installation if it has to be taken away and so on.

Those are questions that people are attempting to answer, but (a) we shouldn't take our eye off the ball here, and, second, I do think that this is a really important role for the federal government in Canada: to try to make sure that those consultations happen and that appropriate consent is asked for and given.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

I'm just wondering, while I've got you here, if you could comment more generally on how you think Canada has done with public engagement and transparency in the nuclear power sphere, especially with moving forward on waste management, because I hear very regularly from citizens and citizen groups that feel that we're not doing a good job. We just heard from a previous witness that we have a whole waste management system being overseen by the industry, not by an independent organization.

[Dr. Jeremy Rayner]

Yes, waste management is very interesting in that respect. We tried once to do this and did it very poorly and had to start all over again, but when we did start all over again, I actually think that in Canada—especially compared with other countries with which I'm familiar—we've done a very reasonable job.

I think you have to understand that the opponents of nuclear power, whatever else they may think, regard holding up the disposal of nuclear waste as a really important way of putting a damper on the development of the industry, and they will continue to make those sorts of claims even if they're not in fact justified.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

How much time do I have, Madam Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

I'm afraid that's it, Mr. Cannings. It was right on time.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Mr. Cannings.

Thank you to all our witnesses.

Now we're going to our five-minute round, and we'll go to Mr. Soroka.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Witnesses, thank you for coming this evening.

I'll start with Dr. Walker.

As was stated in the April 2022 newsletter of the Canadian Nuclear Workers' Council, “The exclusion of nuclear [power] in the Government of Canada's [recent] Green Bond Framework was extremely disappointing.” Can you please expand on the faults found in this framework?