Natural Resources committee  A lot of the 900-engineer increase is due to the refurbishment contracts we have signed here in Canada and the ones we're going to be doing offshore. I would say every time we carry out a project offshore, that probably creates something like $1.5 billion worth of goods and services that are purchased out of Canada, and $1.5 billion creates an awful lot of jobs.

Natural Resources committee  We currently emit something like 750 megatonnes a year, I believe. So each twin ACR plant would save, if it displaced coal, about 15 million tonnes. If you could build 10 of these twin ACR stations, then that would provide sufficient hydrogen to fuel probably all the cars and light trucks in Canada, and that would be, I suppose, something like possibly 100 megatonnes.

Natural Resources committee  An ACR station, which is composed of two reactors, would displace about 15 million tonnes of CO2 a year.

Natural Resources committee  I would just add that AECL's commercial business is a very strong business, but the business in fact is used to subsidize some of the policy areas that we carry out. No other nuclear vendor operates a national nuclear laboratory. Only AECL does that. The commercial side of our business could stand on its own, and it's a very profitable business.

Natural Resources committee  First of all, the heavy water, in fact, is reusable. It's in a sealed tank, and the water costs about $300 a kilogram, so it's a very valuable commodity. The plan would be to simply keep recycling that heavy water and reusing it and processing it to remove any radioactivity that is in the water.

Natural Resources committee  I just wanted to mention that on the fuel supply it's important to understand that the fuel is a very small percentage of the cost of nuclear power. You can double the fuel cost and it doesn't have much impact on the cost of the power. Also, in terms of supply, in the much longer term we are looking at the possibility of burning thorium in CANDU reactors after uranium.

Natural Resources committee  Perfect.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Chairman and committee members, to talk about my favourite topic, nuclear energy. I have prepared a deck, and the first slide is just an overview of how a nuclear reactor works. If you look at the upper left-hand corner, you will see a fuel bundle about the size of a log, which contains one million kilowatt hours of electricity.