Refine by MP, party, committee, province, or result type.
Natural Resources committee If you look at this chart you'll see that we actually put this on. Every time you undertake a medical process, it's around 1.2 millisievert, whereas the regulatory level is 1.0 millisievert over a year. So our standard for those operating facilities is lower than what you'd get f
February 24th, 2009Committee meeting
Dr. Michael Binder
Natural Resources committee Correct.
February 24th, 2009Committee meeting
Dr. Michael Binder
Natural Resources committee It goes into our waste facility and it's measured. All the material goes into one facility. Some of it goes into permanent storage, some of it is controlled and measured as they release it to the Ottawa River. There's always some sort of ongoing release well below the health limi
February 24th, 2009Committee meeting
Dr. Michael Binder
Natural Resources committee Every leader manages things as he must. As far as I am concerned, it is always difficult to analyze and to measure all the risks before deciding on what to do. If the reactor is not safe, we will shut it down. However, if we can attenuate the risks, we can try to find other ways
February 24th, 2009Committee meeting
Dr. Michael Binder
Natural Resources committee An expert is working with AECL on finding ways to attenuate the risks.
February 24th, 2009Committee meeting
Dr. Michael Binder
Natural Resources committee Everyone is saying that they are old machines. It is like a car: if you change the tires, the motor and all the rest—
February 24th, 2009Committee meeting
Dr. Michael Binder
Natural Resources committee We've just ordered a couple of licensees, one that I don't know if you're familiar with, the Mackenzie plant, which was in trouble.... We drew an order about removing some material. We will not hesitate to take action if a facility is unsafe.
February 24th, 2009Committee meeting
Dr. Michael Binder
Natural Resources committee What has happened—and again, I wasn't there, so I'm just telling you what I would do. You have to weigh risks. We have to weigh risk on the impact on the environment. When a proponent comes to us and wants to open up a new mine, we have to weigh the risk of the impact on the envi
February 24th, 2009Committee meeting
Dr. Michael Binder
Natural Resources committee Heavy water is when deuterium and hydrogen get together and there is another neutron in hydrogen. It is naturally occurring. I don't remember what the percentage is, maybe 10% heavier than normal water. It's a natural kind of element. It's used to moderate, by which I mean to con
February 24th, 2009Committee meeting
Dr. Michael Binder
Natural Resources committee It's not toxic at all. It's plain water. In fact, it will never happen because it's very expensive. I don't think anyone would just allow heavy water to flow into the water, because in fact you're reprocessing and trying to recover as much of the heavy water as you can so that yo
February 24th, 2009Committee meeting
Dr. Michael Binder
Natural Resources committee Tritium occurs naturally as a result of cosmic radiation, if you like. We have a chart here. If you look at the first chart, it shows that the natural background radiation for all Canadians is 2.4 millisievert. There are all kinds of nuclides in the atmosphere, and they're called
February 24th, 2009Committee meeting
Dr. Michael Binder
Natural Resources committee All facilities have a place where they collect the radioactive material and many other materials--there are all kinds of other materials. Some of them get treated; some get measured and controlled in terms of release to the outside world; some of them are stored in permanent faci
February 24th, 2009Committee meeting
Dr. Michael Binder
Natural Resources committee Obviously now, as we've admitted, Canadians want to know. We will gladly share with them more information. What was surprising, again, is that the leak was inside the machine. None of this went outside to the river, etc., and that's why we took a decision not to go public with
February 24th, 2009Committee meeting
Dr. Michael Binder
Natural Resources committee With all due respect, I'm not a lawyer, but I know that section 19 of our act gave the government the authority to direct the commission. I also know, because our lawyer is telling us, that you cannot legislate by direction. In other words, any new mandate imposed on the commissi
February 24th, 2009Committee meeting
Dr. Michael Binder
Natural Resources committee I don't know how to explain a 2/10,000 percentage more strictly. It's minuscule, that's all I can say. And it has no impact. There is no known empirical health evidence of an impact of that concentration on the health of human beings, animals, air, you name it.
February 24th, 2009Committee meeting
Dr. Michael Binder