Natural Resources committee  Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. I am here with our vice-president and general counsel, Allan Hawryluk. Ladies and gentlemen, I joined AECL in January, on the same day that Glenn

Natural Resources committee  No, sir. My reference to “improbable” predated mid-April, in the sense that the mid-April tests were specifically designed to test a hypothesis that we could move the PCR coefficient closer to the acceptable range for which it could be licensed. Unfortunately, the results of tha

Natural Resources committee  We are engaging in discussions with the CNSC with the goal of establishing a very clear process that will determine the licensability requirements and conditions that we need to meet in order to successfully apply for a new licence effective 2011. In that process with them we ar

Natural Resources committee  Sir, basically the issues that resulted in the NRU shutdown were ones that in our view really revolved around the licensing basis and licensability, as opposed to safety. That having been said, the decision made by both sides--by CNSC and AECL--was that we needed an independent r

Natural Resources committee  I honestly am quite convinced that we have dramatically improved the working relationships and communications with the CNSC. We respect their role as the regulator, and they respect ours as the licensee and the operator. I think we have today an interchange with them that is open

Natural Resources committee  My French is not good enough to talk about such complex issues.

Natural Resources committee  Maybe before I do that I should just say a good thank you to Mr. Wallace for handing off the technical explanations to me, drawing deeply on my five months of experience in the industry. With respect to the ACR you mentioned—and I'm not talking based on first-hand knowledge, but

Natural Resources committee  That's where I run out of depth, to be perfectly honest. My staff have done their best to brief me and to put me in a position where I can carry on a reasonably superficial conversation about it. But basically, the message I want to leave is that the design of the ACR, as it's cu

Natural Resources committee  Again, I'm not the right person to answer that question; however, I will say that based on all of the briefings I've had from all of my senior technical staff, the answer to that is—you're correct—yes. We don't believe we have any issues whatsoever on that score. One of the signi

Natural Resources committee  Yes, it's slightly enriched uranium.

Natural Resources committee  The ACR-1000 today is designed around the use of slightly enriched uranium. So it is a higher uranium content than the natural uranium we use for the CANDU 6. We say it is “slightly enriched” because it is less enriched than the low-enriched fuel that's used in the light water re

Natural Resources committee  I would not characterize it as a design flaw; I would characterize it as a design attribute. The decisions were made balancing many different factors—again, predating my arrival, so I'm only repeating what I'm told. But the decisions have been made to optimize the various factors

Natural Resources committee  I am certainly happy to talk about that, because it is important. The first thing is that we have implemented a communications protocol that is clearly understood at all levels within our organization and various aspects of the supply chain, such that in the event that there is

Natural Resources committee  That actually puts me in a bit of an awkward position, because the guidelines imposed by the Ontario bidding process preclude me from making any comments with respect to competitive reactor-makers in a public forum, so I'd prefer, if I may, to defer and not respond directly to th

Natural Resources committee  The other two were the requirement to fund the ongoing development of the ACR-1000, which we've just been talking about, and the requirement to begin to invest in the renewal of the infrastructure at our Chalk River laboratories. Those were identified in the course of the special