Natural Resources committee  I have just one thing to clarify that. OPG or Bruce has done four open houses in the communities to tell them what they are doing with their plans of siting more reactors on the existing site, and in four open houses, they had fewer than 200 people show up. So people aren't that concerned, to only have 200 people in four different open houses.

Natural Resources committee  What's happening in Alberta is we have an appetite for oil and gas, and we have oil and gas there, so that appetite is amazing. But our conventional oil is pretty much used up, or the idea of finding more of it in our area, so they're going to the oil sands because it's there. They know it's there.

Natural Resources committee  We're going.

Natural Resources committee  On the business point of view, we did that ourselves. We did that because it's for us and it's for a company that's actually taking it, so they did the feasibility on whether it's economical. We're selling them that power at a price for which AECL says they can actually build the facility as well as looking at all the economics of running the facility, buying the uranium, commissioning, and operating the facility day to day.

Natural Resources committee  I can answer that a little bit. On the economical side, with having so much power in Quebec and Ontario, with 50% of it coming from nuclear in Ontario, with their hydro, that brought a great economic base to your community with a stable energy cost. That stable energy cost is very important for the majority of manufacturing businesses to make sure that they can stay alive, because that's one of their major costs.

Natural Resources committee  For our town-hall meeting tomorrow, we're actually bringing one of the mayors from one of the existing communities that actually has nuclear power today. The polls generally show that there's substantially more approval for nuclear power in the communities that actually have nuclear power today, so they accept it, like it, and feel it's safe, and they work in the facilities every day.

Natural Resources committee  I want to add a little bit to that. Right now, radiation is moved around cities everywhere. Radiation is used in the hospitals and it's fully insurable. It's transported every day throughout Canada and the world and it's not something that's uncommon. I see it behind vehicles on a regular basis on the road.

Natural Resources committee  I have to say I can work with the timelines as long as the reviews are done as they're stated and we're not held up. I'm just nervous because of so much that's coming on. So far, with the CNSC and AECL, I believe that everything's been going unbelievably smoothly, but because there's so much coming down and it is all, basically, brand new, I think all of us have to support and work with those regulatory people to understand their issues and problems as they come forward, and try to help them come to conclusions they feel comfortable with.

Natural Resources committee  They're hoping to move it along a lot faster, that's correct.

Natural Resources committee  On that comment, I just see that we have an opportunity here not to worry about others, but actually to bring a process that's fairly straightforward to our system. We are very concerned about our environment and our people, so if we're that concerned, we should have a process that's very defined so that I, or any other builder of a nuclear facility, can walk in and say here's what we need to do to make sure that it's safe.

Natural Resources committee  Well, the United States has the largest number in the world right now. They've now streamlined their process to where you actually pre-approve your facility. They actually have a pre-approval process. You can say, “I want to use X reactor”, and they say, “yes, that's fine, here it is.”

Natural Resources committee  Exactly.

Natural Resources committee  I think that's between us and the AECL, that costing, but right now we feel we can deliver somewhere around 6¢ to 7¢ a kilowatt. That's about the going price right now. In order for me to develop our facility it would cost us about that.

Natural Resources committee  That's our whole package; that's correct. We have decommissioning costs in there, as well as looking after the waste fuel.

Natural Resources committee  To add to that, we're concerned about a waste that we actually hold on to--that we actually have control of it and make sure we monitor it. If you put that in an idea of what's happening with the waste from a coal facility and where it's going, I can't see its being comparable. Today we accept coal and its going into a dumping ground in the sky, but we're not acceptable to understanding that we can actually hold on to it and manage that waste.