Mr. David F. Torgerson on An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River

Mr. Chair, we have operated the NRU reactor without either pump being hooked up to the new seismically qualified emergency power system.

I should state to everybody and repeat what our chief nuclear officer said. These pumps in the past have had two different sources of power. They have had the normal power to run the pumps and they have had an emergency source of power to run the pumps.

This is a third source. So there have been two sources operating before and we have been able to operate the plant safely with two power sources on the pump. This is adding a third.

Obviously, if we can operate a reactor safely with two power supplies on the pump, we believe that we can operate it with three power supplies on the pump. That is what we have done to pump five.