Natural Resources committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for the opportunity to appear before you today. Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, CNL, is Canada's leading nuclear science and technology organization and is world renowned for its role in developing peaceful and innov

Natural Resources committee  I hear the question as being as to what we are doing about talent retention so that we can maintain our position here and support the technology that's a bit stand-alone compared to the rest of the country. We have a very active program right now where we are attracting the best

Natural Resources committee  We continue to support the CANDU technology either directly to the utilities or through COG. You stated earlier, and you're correct, that SNC-Lavalin owns that technology now. They bought that. We have agreements, and we continue to support and do the research, do life extension

Natural Resources committee  I think the jury is still out on that, to be honest with you. There are a lot of thoughts floating around, but in general, the world is looking at the real possibility of using modular reactors. It's a bit of a new approach rather than building and having that huge investment, th

Natural Resources committee  How do we still connect then to...?

Natural Resources committee  The very simple explanation that we like to say is that AECL tells us the what and then we figure out the how. Although it is in consultation, we all realize that a lot of good thinkers in the room can come up with a better what, but ultimately it is their decision. We put togeth

Natural Resources committee  The ultimate goal for us is to bring more S and T to the site. That's the ultimate goal of this model, for us to improve on efficiencies of delivery, improve the infrastructure so there aren't those frustrations on old equipment and facilities, and think in a more business develo

Natural Resources committee  Right. I think, Cheryl, you're talking about what we're doing to divest the manufacturing and machine shops. We have about 40 or 50 people right now whose main task and the vast majority of their work is to maintain the NRU reactor. That reactor is going to be closed down permane

Natural Resources committee  This is the classic neutron gap and what are we going to do. First of all, in our contract when we were established here, there was a clear indication from government—the previous government—that it didn't have an interest at that time in having a new reactor. The way I portra

Natural Resources committee  Do you mean the work that we do for the federal government? Yes, we have ways that we track that, and actually, we're hearing really good reports. A new committee that has been established actually funnels and understands what the different federal needs are in research. Reports

Natural Resources committee  I am not familiar with all of the advancements in other renewables that would be able to support the microgrids. I'll be honest, on just what I said, I have to go back and do a little more research myself. From what we have seen, and what we read, actually renewables are great.

Natural Resources committee  The model is not the driver. Set the model aside. If the lab wanted to continue and be successful in nuclear technology going forward, and it still maintained that it was going to stay only with the CANDU technology going forward, I'm afraid that it would not survive without a hu

Natural Resources committee  I understand. Other methods have been looked at. We've looked at whether we could solidify the material and put together a facility at the site and deal with it ourselves. First of all, the cost is much higher, but of course safety is always number one, so if it is going to cos

Natural Resources committee  I won't have the full story. Some of the arrangements for the way such sales would be done and for any kind of royalties in all this are beyond my remit, so I don't know it, but whenever we expand the fleet of CANDU reactors and take it to the next generation as well, it helps us

Natural Resources committee  This actually predates my time, so it's rather hearsay, but if you look at the specification we were responding to, there was no hint that we were going to be chasing after that initially. I can understand this. We have a lot of work in front of us, first just in properly transit