It is a good idea to talk about privatizing AECL but it is not simple. We cannot do that in one quick step.
We must remember that more than 80 per cent of the nuclear industry in Canada is already private. The only parts that are still under government supervision and are still being subsidized by the government are the parts that do not make money, the research facilities primarily. Everything else is being operated by the private sector. There are 150 companies out there that compete with suppliers in client countries. They are efficient and they make money.
The Koreans have been so delighted with what we have done with the private end of the industry, the building of the reactors, that they have ordered three more. I would have to take issue with the hon. member who spoke for the Liberals. Wolsong 1 is probably a better reactor even than Point Lepreau. It has been up and running since 1982. They love it and they want more of them.
Let us get back to AECL specifically. Among the major crown corporations it is the only one that is seriously cutting costs. This formerly bloated entity has cut its staff from 4,500 to 3,700. Even more commendable is that it has reduced its Ottawa head office staff from 160 to 54, a two-thirds reduction.
I was out at Chalk River a couple of months ago to look the place over and what I found was quite a tight ship. There was none of the opulence that we have come to associate with government. It was nothing like the Department of National Defence, for example, or the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. This is an outfit that knows what money is for.
Let us take a look at the specifics of the bill. Clause 3(b) speaks of research, investigation, design, testing, construction, manufacture, operation, use, application or licensing of any thing or property of any nature that will be used in or for a nuclear reactor. If the world were only that simple. We cannot pigeon hole or categorize scientific research like that. Much of what is being done at Chalk River at the moment is pure scientific research which may or may not be applicable to reactor design.
The line between pure and applied science is very hard to draw. That is why privatization although necessary and desirable will be difficult. An entirely new company of researchers will have to be formed to sell their services to the people who have the reactors. That is going on now to some extent. They take in $86 million a year in fees for the work that is done at Chalk River on behalf of reactor owners. Eventually they will have to become self-sufficient and I do not think it will happen until it is privatized.
With all the pure science going on out there it is not going to be an easy sell. However we do not just kill the flagship of Canadian R and D. Let us remember the Avro Arrow, because this is the sort of thing we are talking about. Clause 4 would preclude provision to any person, any professional, scientific technical information or assistance that relates to research investigation, design, testing, construction, manufacture, operation, use, application or licensing of any thing or property of any nature that would be used in or for a nuclear reactor. In plain English, it would make orphans of the Candu reactors that provide almost half of Ontario's electricity.
The work being done at AECL that is not pure science is bankrolled by the utilities. As I have mentioned they spend about $86 million a year on it. It is to enhance plant safety, prolong operational lives and cut maintenance costs. If we want to remain in the forefront of an industry we have to do R and D and we have to do it continuously.
They are doing work out there now on the applications of computer technology to the construction and operation of plants, improving reactor fuel channels, better fuel design and so on. Bill C-285 would stop this cold.
Clause 5 says that the act does not apply to a nuclear reactor that has as its sole purpose the manufacture or development of isotopes for medical use. The hon. member for Kamloops should know that this function of AECL has already been privatized. Nordion was sold for $165 million. Incidentally the government of the day pocketed the funds into general revenue and did not leave a penny for the operations.
During his long harangue about the technical side of nuclear energy the hon. member for Kamloops reflected the anti-industrial primitivism that is so common among a small segment of his party, the people we refer to as the nuts and berries crowd.
We live in a climate of irrational fear of the atom because most people do not understand it. They do not have a vague notion of how a reactor works. Polls indicate that 10 per cent of the public actually believes that a reactor can explode like an atomic bomb. Vast numbers who at least know better than that believe a nuclear plant constantly emits streams of deadly radiation that will induce cancer, make them sterile or cause them to conceive defective children.
A few highly visible crusaders have seized upon the fears as a convenient means of attacking a social order that they find distasteful and have found highly successful careers as virtual cult leaders. When primitive man was troubled by fears of the unknown, he consulted the witch doctor or the shaman. Sophisticated modern man appeals to Amory Lovins, Ralph Nader or Barry Commoner.
The hon. member was engaging in a little shameless sophistry when talked about 4 per cent of the energy uses of Canada coming from nuclear. For God's sake that includes the use of fuel in cars. There are not very many nuclear cars. What it does produce is 20 per cent of the electrical energy that is used in the country and, as has been stated two or three times, nearly 50 per cent of Ontario's electrical energy. We used to have a bumper sticker out west that said: "Let those eastern bastards freeze in the dark". Apparently this is what the hon. member for Kamloops is suggesting we do again.
He mentioned the decommissioning cost of $13 billion. That is not bad for an industry that produces $4 billion worth of electricity annually over a period of probably 30 years of operational life for a plant. Remember, that $13 billion is not just for one reactor, that is for the whole shooting match. At least that is a number which both the pro and the anti-nukes agree on.
There has been a lot of talk about the waste. It is an insoluble problem. It will be with us forever. The nuclear priesthood will have to guard it. I am reminded of a quote from Goethe that the phrases men repeat incessantly end by becoming convictions and ossify the organs of intelligence.
If Canada went 100 per cent nuclear for its electricity each family share of spent fuel, or high level waste if you prefer that term, would be seven ounces a year. This stuff is put into the swimming pools at the plants. As somebody said, there are 21,000 tonnes of it around now. Within 10 years the radioactivity is reduced by 90 per cent. Within 1,000 years in dead storage the radioactive levels would be sufficiently reduced to make it perfectly safe to eat a few spoonfuls of the stuff.
You get these anti-technological myths about plutonium, because there is plutonium in the waste. It is the deadliest thing known to man. It is evil. God did not create it. That is garbage. That stuff is an alpha emitter, for openers. You could wrap it in a piece of tissue paper, put it in your pant's pocket and walk around with it with impunity because it emits no gamma radiation and no beta radiation. It is not dangerous. If you were to eat a bunch of it, it is 50 times less poisonous than ordinary arsenic trioxide. Mr. Speaker, you can look that up in any good journal of toxicology.
It has been studied in great detail. The toxicity of plutonium on a weight dose basis is much less than that of many items which are kept commonly around the home. It is lethal only if breathed into the lungs or directly injected into the bloodstream. Then it will kill you, and it will kill you quick, but not as quickly as botulism poison, for example, which is fairly abundant, and anthrax. Again, there are many natural toxins which are more toxic than this horrible stuff that we all have to worry about so much.
I see the Speaker starting to rise from his seat. I wish I could have spent some time on the technical aspects of this. As you have probably gathered I do have some knowledge of nuclear energy production. Perhaps another day.