An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, our view on the operation is that prior to November 18, when neither pump was connected to the emergency power system, it was not an acceptable situation. However, the proposal put forward by AECL is to have one of the pumps connected to the emergency power system, wit

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, what we focus on is the due diligence that has to be executed to ensure the safety case is up to nuclear standards and that all the professional expectations are put in place and we have a process in place to meet that. Our focus is to ensure that the detailed safety

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  At the moment, the process we are following is expedited. We are going as fast as we can. Safety cases are not simple things. There is a lot of complexity. There are things like thermal hydraulics and reliability, reactor physics and looking at very important things. Our expecta

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, within our regulatory toolbox, what we do to provide assurance of safe operation is verification work. If there is a problem, we do enforcement work if we find things out of compliance. For return to service, we would be looking at three things. First, main heavy wat

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, I would just like to clarify our position. As I said before, the reactor underwent seven upgrades to bring it up to modern standards. There is a difference between safe operation versus risk to safety. This reactor has operated with no significant accidents, although

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, as for what we are looking at from risk, we have to remember that it has two components: it has likelihood and it has consequence. With the situation in November when the reactor was shut down and kept down when the two pumps were not connected, the risk of that was i

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, the amount of time it is going to take to review the safety case depends on the quality of the information submitted. However, our understanding is that there is a good understanding between AECL and ourselves, so that when the information comes in, we expect it would

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, right now the proof's licensing basis is with two pumps connected. The situation right now is no pumps connected. However, AECL is in the process of connecting one pump. As for the safety case that we are reviewing, our expectation is that with this connection the lik

An Act to permit the resumption and continuation of the operation of the National Research Universal Reactor at Chalk River  Mr. Chair, the status right now is that early on when the reactor was shut down, we had a meeting with AECL, which presented the start of the safety case: to be able to operate the reactor with one pump connected to the emergency power system and the other pump operational but no