Dr. Keefer Testifies on the "Just Transition"

Chris Keefer  0:03  

Hello, everybody. And welcome to the Decouple podcast, where we explore the science and technologies that can Decouple human wellbeing from its ecological impacts, and the politics that can make decoupling possible.

Jesse Freeston  0:20  

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Decouple. I'm Jessie from the Decouple Media Team. Chris can't be with us today because he's in Ottawa, Canada for a very special episode of Decouple where our host gets interviewed by the Parliament of Canada. And to be specific, it's the Committee on natural resources in their ongoing investigation into what a equitable and fair energy transition would look like, for Canada. regular listeners will probably have a sense of where Chris stands on this. And he's definitely in his element here, until one particularly daring Member of Parliament, does a not really true to fact recount as something Chris says earlier in the presentation, in a clear attempt to try and delegitimize his character, I would say, and Chris's reaction is, is a bit funny. One other point to add for those unfamiliar with Canadian parliamentary protocol is that when you hear a sort of quiet voice come in, and the volume and the rest of the audio drop, it's because somebody has switched into French, and that is the voice of the English language, translator. And with that, I'm going to cede the rest of my time over to committee chair John Aldec, who will present Christopher Keefer.

MP John Aldag  1:46  

On the study of creating a fair and equitable Canadian energy transformation, we have our witnesses, and it's a very exciting day, we actually have in person witnesses like this, the first of this Parliament. And so we have four Canadians for nuclear energy, Christopher Kiefer President get risky for joining. Go ahead. Okay, so over to you all start the clock now.

Chris Keefer  2:08  

It's wonderful to be here in person with you. My name is Chris Keefer. I'm an ER physician and also the president of Canadians for nuclear energy. We are a nonprofit made up of scientists, doctors, engineers, environmentalists and trades people who believe that nuclear energy is the keystone technology of our climate response, and really is the gold standard template for a just transition. Nuclear is an evidence evidence based path that we've walked before when we use nuclear energy right here in this province to provide 90% of the power generation needed to permanently close Ontario's massive coal fleet. Fossil fuel workers transition from high paying skilled trades, jobs and coal to even better jobs in nuclear. We know that to get to net zero we need to replace fossil fuel power generation with zero carbon power at least one to one. It's a simple concept with staggering implications. We currently use fossil fuels for 74% of our energy needs. And we need to build the equivalent of 113 sightsee dams or 96, large CANDU reactors to double our grade in order to electrify everything. You know, battery electric vehicles and hydrogen are a vital part of the solution. But electric vehicles don't charge themselves and hydrogen doesn't fall like manna from the heavens, we need reliable energy to generate that. This will be an expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars. And given the tight timelines and limited resources, we can't afford to get this wrong. So what are our options for that low carbon power generation, nach nationally, hydroelectricity has been the backbone of our low carbon grid, it's largely tapped out and vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Geothermal is geographically limited, so we're left with potential scalable options of wind, solar and nuclear. It is my contention that the just transition is technologically specific, and that despite excellent PR and branding, wind and solar, unfortunately, do not offer a just transition for Canadian workers. I'm gonna explain myself by examining the respective supply chains, job types and negotiating position of workers in these respective sectors. The nuclear supply chain is 96% made in Canada, that includes the mines, fuel fabrication, heavy industry, construction, operation, maintenance, and spent fuel handling. nuclear energy consists of cheap uranium plus high skilled, mostly union labor. It experiences an economic multiplier effect unparalleled by any other energy source. Every dollar invested in nuclear in Canada generates $1.30 return in GDP. So we capture the value of that entire investment. And again, we're talking hundreds of billions of dollars within the Canadian economy, and mostly within the pockets of working Canadians. Wind and Solar unfortunately, don't share this this supply chain is almost exclusively overseas. 40% of the world's polysilicon is made in China's Xinjiang province, where there are credible allegations of forced Uyghur labor and where the Canadian part element voted last year 266 to zero that a genocide of the Uighur people is taking place. Seven of the 10 largest wind turbine manufacturers are Chinese companies and European Wind developers are quickly moving their manufacturing to China for cheaper raw materials and labor. What are the just transition implications of spending hundreds of billions of dollars right here at home in Canada on nuclear the ultimate economic multiplayer, versus generating an epic trade deficit by sending that money to a foreign supply chain in an authoritarian country and becoming a nation of low skilled foreign made solar panel and wind turbine installers. Let's talk about jobs now. I want you to imagine yourself in the parking lot at a nuclear plant. It's a big parking lot, probably 2000 spots, who's getting in and out of the cars, nuclear plant workers, skilled trades people Boilermakers, pipe fitters, electricians, welders STEM professionals PhDs. These workers have permanent, secure intergenerational employment anchored in their community, and almost all of them are union members. They earn six figure salaries mostly and spend their wages within their thriving local communities stimulating their local economies. Wind and solar, on the other hand, does not offer the same kinds of jobs. The majority are an installation and construction. Jim Harrison, the director of renewable energy for the Utility Workers Union of America says it's a lot of transient work work that is marginal, precarious and very difficult to organize. Two thirds of jobs are low, skilled and most are non union. Once constructed, these facilities are virtually worthless. I want to close by talking a little bit about labor history, and just how workers have have gotten themselves just working conditions to this date. As Frederick Douglass famously said power concedes nothing without demand. Workers were not historically gifted high wages and safe working conditions they fought for them is high skilled workers that are hard to replace the scab laborer who have the right to strike that win concessions. Nuclear offers precisely this mix and oversee supplies, chain worker lists wind and solar facilities and temporary low skilled jobs do not offer this possibility. Ultimately, Canadian workers will be the heroes of their own just transition, but only if policymakers make the right technological choices and set the right industrial policy centered on Canadian nuclear energy. So my organization would like to see nuclear included in the green bond bonds built the infrastructure of this country, which we're currently freeloading on, you've heard the sheer volume of the number of power plants that we're going to need to build. I'd also like to suggest that we develop a federal vehicle, which can help to facilitate investment in this structure, streamline licensing, etc. And lastly, there is a critical need for education in the STEM areas in skilled trades in order to staff the positions of this nuclear renaissance, which we truly believe is coming to Canada. Thank you very much.

John Aldag  7:51  

Thank you a little bit more

Larry Maguire  7:51  

Canada's a leader in nuclear research and technology, exporting a lot of the Candu reactor systems and most of our uranium products. So what should the government do to expand the industry here in Canada, and potentially, and, you know, use it to make as many jobs that we can potentially,

Chris Keefer  8:14  

you know, I think the scale of what's required that the staggering scale, truly of the number of power plants we need to build really means that we cannot abandon our CANDU technology, which is, you know, in the words of Seamus O'Regan, a gold standard reactor around the world. You know, first off, we're into refurbishments, which is absolutely excellent positions Canada very well. Many other Western countries have had troubles with with new build in the last 20 years. And it's because they had an atrophied workforce. And they were experimenting with with new designs. So we have a design that we're intimately familiar with thanks for the refurbishment, and an absolutely excellent tuned up workforce ready to go in terms of you know, federally how we can support the provinces because it's provincial jurisdiction, building power generation. I mean, I really think this needs to be a subject of some form of parliamentary inquiry, because, you know, this is a staggering challenge. And in World War Two, I think we started 17 Crown corporations, and we built more armored vehicles than the axis Paleis allies combined. We talk about the need for, you know, World War Two level mobilizations. Federal Governments have gotten involved in energy before you know, we have unfortunately bailed out things like you know, hydro dams, the federal government and bought CMX pipeline we have we have a percentage of the Hibernia oil fields, it's time to make those kinds of investments in nuclear, which is really what can deliver both effective deep decarbonisation, as we proved here in Ontario and a just transition as I hope that we've demonstrated.

Larry Maguire  9:34  

Should the committee asked the government to send a signal that the nuclear energy must expand to meet future energy needs as part of this transition? You answered that I think maybe one word yes. Yeah. And also, you know, the wind and solar energies that you had, and I'll get back to that as well. But, you know, the wind and solar technologies, as you indicated in your opening remarks are not as reliable and they're foreign made. We've got a nuclear system here. Do you think you've just described as top notch in the world and creating valuable well paying jobs and unionized jobs in most cases as well? So is there anything you want to expand on that?

Chris Keefer  10:11  

Yeah, there's a big taboo to talk in negative terms about wind and solar technology. This is not punching down, you know, of global electricity spending, it's about $800 billion. Wind and solar are using about 300 billion of that investment. And this is a critical issue, you know, I'm not paid by the industry, I'm a physician giving up shifts. So I can come to Ottawa and give this testimony I do this out of a sense of civic duty. I'm the father of a three and a half year old. And I think we have a really divergent path forward in terms of what this country is going to look like. And we desperately need to restore industry. And to do that we need reliable energy to drive that. If you look at what's going on with the Russian aggression in Ukraine right now, the EU is completely handicapped in terms of stopping this because they're funding that aggression to the tune of 700 million euros every single day, because they created a wind and solar dominant energy transition backed by natural gas. That's the problem, as you were saying of this unreliability and intermittency. There's lots of fairy tales about, you know, grid scale batteries and other solutions. But the richest industrialized country in Europe, you know, who haven't worked the most on this spent 550 billion on this process, rely on coal for the dominant source of electricity in 2021. and Russian gas now, Canada could find itself in the same situation with the supply chains. I was talking about what happens if China takes Taiwan? How do we respond effectively to that, you know, we cannot set ourselves up in that way for reasons again, of effective deep decarbonisation of a no just recovery and adjust transition. And in matters of vital national security and energy security, nuclear absolutely needs to be centered by this government.

Larry Maguire  11:51  

That the we're gonna have to double or triple the amount of electrical grid that we have in order to accommodate net zero by 2050. So what policy changes specifically should the federal government make to get more nuclear energy generation to support this netzero future? I mean, the green ones is one thing but as are others.

Chad Richards  12:13  

Through Through you, Mr. Chair, going back to the previous question before to the honourable member, a directive to a recent paper that was released by the International Monetary Fund, where it showed that investment in Nuclear power produces the biggest multiplier effect of any clean source of electricity generation. And nuclear creates 25% more employment per unit of electricity than wind and earn and we and workers in those industries earn about 30%. More to your question about what the government can do. Absolutely. The recommendations and Dr. Kiefer's address and really supporting the CNSC. And moving regulatory approvals through as quick as possible is something we can do.

Yvonne Jones  12:50  

And I'm, I'm gonna start my questions on the uranium side. On the nuclear side, I say uranium because my writings in Labrador, and we have lots of uranium. And I'm happy to see that it is a critical mineral in Canada and the opportunity to really see that develop. But in addition to that, I come from one or two areas in Canada that probably has the best geological camp compound for depository waste storage of nuclear as well. And it's something that has always been highlighted and, and brought forward. You know, and obviously, one of the areas that has always been a concern, whenever we talk about nuclear whenever we talk about uranium and advancing that industry, and I think it is is a concern for Canadians. So one of my questions is and how we address that. My second question is with regard to production. So we see what's happening with nuclear production in Canada today. How much production do we do we need to get to? What does that increase look like? And what's our transmission ability to bring that to provinces and territories around the country? So I'll stop there and listen to your responses.

Chris Keefer  14:12  

I'm learning the etiquette here, but through the chair. You're right uranium is a is a critical mineral. And, you know, I did some back of the envelope calculations on this, uranium actually offsets 1/3 of Canada's national annual emissions, we put out 730 Mega tons, the uranium that we contribute domestically and internationally to the global reactor fleet, which creates the this is definitive now, in terms of the lifecycle analysis of co2 emissions nuclear is rock bottom five grams of co2 per kilowatt hour so that that uranium displaces 1/25 of all of humanity's global emissions and again, 1/3 of Canada's national emissions. So uranium is something we should actually we should be very proud of uranium mining has come a long way. You know, it is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the world and we're doing a very good job of that now. All in regards to the waste, I think this is a really important question. I'm glad that it came up. You mentioned having really good geology for a potential repository. You know, what really put me at ease was talking with with a number of geologists. And the the thing is, you're saying the rock is so good, right. And the rock is the barrier, the mechanism for ways to get out of a repository and accumulate in the dose that could be harmful to anybody is that water needs to get through all of these engineered barriers, right? It needs to dissolve a ceramic, okay, which doesn't happen very easily. And then it has to carry those radioisotopes in solution through the rock. Well, the rocks we're looking at. And so with Bruce, it takes a million years for water to move one meter, right. And after about 1000 years, the only way for nuclear waste to harm us if you eat it, pulverize it and eat it. And I'm saying this as a physician who's looked into this in some detail, I'm not trying to brush off concerns here. But we've made such a mountain out of a molehill with the waste, you know, all of the waste that Canada has produced in 70 years would fit in one hockey rink, piled one telephone pole height, just to give you a sense of that volume, you know, this, this room, maybe with the ceiling twice as high. Uranium is so incredibly energy dense. And that's the secret to why it is such an environmentally friendly form of energy generation, you do the least mining, you need the least materials, right? A nuclear power plant might look big and ominous. But the Pickering nuclear power plant on the footprint, the size of Costco provides all of the baseload needs for the GTA. So it's just it's just a staggering, and that's why I've come to be passionate about it. You know, again, I have no no ties to this industry. It's just, you know, having looked at the evidence how serious climate change is, and started to evaluate what the potential solutions are this, this is where I've been steered towards. And I'm sorry, from I'm taking up too much time, we'll cut the minute enough time to

Mario Simard  16:41  

Mr. Keefer, I saw that you're quite passionate. I noticed this, when you were talking about nuclear, I have to talk about something that concerns me, waste management, you know that in Chalk River, there is nuclear waste, that is close to a water supply. So if something unfortunate were to happen, well, the Island of Montreal could not have access to clean water. I don't know much about waste management. But it's a major concern for a lot of people. How could we have waste management, that would be acceptable, and that would create risks, that would be less significant because we need to support workers, but the equitable transition is also to not put a burden on future generations. And I think that waste management is something that the future generations will have to pay the price for.

John Aldag  17:53  

Enter the six minutes, but I'll give you just a quick response to that, if you could, and then we'll move to Mr. Angus for his six minutes.

Chris Keefer  18:00  

Sure. I mean, like I said, this is an issue that does definitely merit a response. You know, we've been storing spent civilian nuclear waste for 70 years now. In the world's history of storing expensively nuclear waste, there's not been a single death associated with that we know how to shield radiation very, very well. We need a permanent solution. Finland is building a deep Geologic Repository right now. It'll be open shortly. As I was mentioning before, the geology is what contains that we talked about burdening things, we think about civilizational lifeskills, it's reasonable to say, My God, you know, 10,000 years, there hasn't been a civilization that's lasted 10,000 years, we're talking about rock that's hundreds of millions of years old, and completely stable, where we understand again, the characteristics of that rock. And as I was mentioning before, if it takes water a million years to move a meter through that rock carrying anything that could potentially come up from all of those engineered barriers, it's no longer harmless at that point, we need to be worried about the Forever waste out there, the heavy metals, and particularly the fossil fuels that are continuously spilling into our atmosphere and driving climate change. So I know we don't have much time and I'm happy to address this further. But I do think this issue has really been blown out of proportion by Anti-nuclear environmentalists that use it as a as a means to prevent what I think is our most effective climate solution.

MP John Aldag  19:14  

Okay, Mr. Angus, you have six minutes.

Charlie Angus  19:16  

Thank you very much. I was reading the IPCC reports on nuclear, never quite as gung ho as you are, Mr. Keefer. They rate the serious question about risks of proliferation, negative environmental impacts, mixed effects on human health. They talk about the long timeline that it takes to actually get one of them up and running. And they talk about the risk of accidents and radioactive waste management. So that's the IPCC report, but I'd like to focus on the issue of proliferation because these small modular reactors are different and can do so. Mr. Keefer. We're going to be pitching this technology to the global south where It's possible to distract plutonium. How are you going to address that issue of the threat of proliferation of nuclear weapons? The

Chris Keefer  20:07  

question I'm having,

Charlie Angus  20:09  

I'm asking you Yeah, no,

Chris Keefer  20:10  

no, I'm happy to answer part of that. You know, I'm not a not a nuclear engineer. You know, this issue of nuclear energy leading to nuclear weapons. We have some interesting examples. Look at South Korea and North Korea, North Korea, a country with no civilian nuclear program, and nuclear weapons. South Korea, a country that is about 40% powered powered by nuclear energy, right?

Charlie Angus  20:32  

Our technology, right small modular reactors that you can get plutonium from. They're not CANDU reactors. So why are we selling them if you can get plutonium from

Chris Keefer  20:40  

so plutonium is created as part of neutrons bombarding uranium 238 inside of reactors around the world, it is incredibly difficult to extract plutonium from spent nuclear fuel like that. I'm going to leave that to my my.

Charlie Angus  20:55  

Sure, I only have six shirts, but yeah, I mean, listen, I'm just Charlie for Northern Ontario, but I'm reading the IPCC. And they have flagged this as a serious concern. So I just want to go to the Toronto Star, April 2. David, all of them sure you read his article on questions about the small modular reactors. He says that over 20 years in development still in the concept stage, current SMR designs won't achieve widespread deployment until the mid 2030s. Then by then they will have been overtaken by improvements in existing clean energy sources and future advances in biomass hydrogen methane emission reductions. He says that SMR are a boutique technology. And given the urgency of the climate crisis, even a modest distraction by SMR is an extravagance we can't afford. And then he refers to it as a boutique boondoggle given the fact that we know these other technologies are up and ready to go. Why? Why go down this road? That's really

Chris Keefer  21:50  

you mentioned biomass. Biomass is a terrible source of energy. We're taking land that could be used to grow food and turning it into fuel. We're wood turning wood chips into power. We currently the largest plant in the UK, they burn four gigawatts of woodchips from South Carolina. Right. So by saying that a biomass is a solution, you know, the SMR that we're pursuing here is based on existing technology. It's just a scaled down version of a larger power plant. This isn't a bogeyman. We've been we've been operating boiling Mogi, we've been offering boiling water reactors around the world since the

Speaker 1  22:20  

60s, we get told that, you know, we're afraid of this. In fact, you've told us, I could go home to my people and tell them they could eat uranium. I mean, God help us you know, us people in northern Ontario.

Chris Keefer  22:30  

You're misquoting me, Charlie, I did not say that.

Charlie Angus  22:32  

You said that we made a mountain out of a molehill. That is a nuclear waste. When the questions that are being raised about the small modular reactors and enriched uranium, this isn't can do waste. This is a different kind of waste. And, you know, I come from Northern Ontario, we live with Rock, rock moves, water moves. I don't know if you maybe Vaughn Jones wants it. But you guys, you send your people to our area all the time, looking for a place to dump it, because it's a serious issue. But the CANDU reactors have a kind of technology. But this is different. And you haven't addressed the fact that we're talking about an enriched uranium that has been that they're serious questions about so are you am I supposed to go home and tell people in northern Ontario, hey, you know, it's all been overblown, you can fit it in a hockey arena, you can eat it.

Chris Keefer  23:17  

So certainly that's not a plan. You're right that Canada has homegrown nuclear technology, we use non enriched uranium, the rest of the world uses slightly enriched uranium and their reactor fleets and are managing their wastes the anchal site, the finished site for their DGR is going to be holding waste from those kinds of reactors, Canada's actually unique and using non enriched this is this is not a major issue. And again, waste is waste being managed.

Charlie Angus  23:42  

The modular reactors are different than can do and that's their lives. They're like kind of the physicist gave it the Environment Committee was it because it's enriched uranium? It's a different waste. And it's a more problematic waste than dealing with what we're still trying to figure out where to put the candidates. It's the

Chris Keefer  23:57  

waste is produced in reactors basically everywhere in the world outside of Canada. And it's what's going to be put into the Finland depository. I think you really need to consult with some more physicists on this and some more nuclear engineers on this to understand this issue and more depth in regards to the IPCC in regards to the

Charlie Angus  24:13  

he's a physicist, and he raised this, because the idea that boy, boy, you can eat the uranium once it's I never

Chris Keefer  24:19  

said that, Charlie, you said, I said, if it sits like that, after 1000 years, after 1000 years, the only way it could hurt you is if you pulverize it and eat it. I'm not suggesting anyone eat nuclear waste. Well,

Charlie Angus  24:31  

I've been in northern Ontario, and we've dealt with nuclear issues time and time again. And if you're 7000 feet underground water moves. If you go to 7000 surely

Chris Keefer  24:40  

talk to a geologist, Charlie? Honestly, I've been there. No, no speak to some of the geologists. Yeah.

Charlie Angus  24:45  

And I've never met a geologist who said we should store this in northern Ontario, especially the SMR hours. So you're given us a great spin strangles there are serious issues here.

John Aldag  24:54  

Mr. Richards was if you're interested in trying to get into the conversation as well. I don't know if you saw it. Yeah,

Chad Richards  25:00  

thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, just with respect to the question about SMR technology. The fact that it's a new technology doesn't mean that it's not going through the CNSC at our world class regulator, to look at safety aspects. So I think that I trust the folk, the great folks at the CNSC, who for years have been regulating is an industry that has been operating safely and effectively. And I would trust them again, with this with this process as well as they evaluate the utility of this technology and the safety systems around it.

Charlie Angus  25:29  

Sorry, just as so it hasn't been approved, yet. It's been tested.

Chad Richards  25:34  

It's moving through the CNSC. Thank you,

MP John Aldag  25:36  

sir. Yeah, that's the end of that six minute round. We're now going to go to a slightly shorter one couple of five minutes, and then a couple of two and a half minutes. And that's going to be the end of the time that we have. So Mr. McLean, you get the first five minutes.

Greg McLean  25:52  

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome. And thank you to the nuclear representatives here for presenting viable technology that isn't just technology, and it exists today. So it's not fairy tale stuff, but also is an energy system. So not just something where you add on to somebody else's energy system and pretend to work at part time. I really appreciate your comments on wind and solar. And I'd like you to expand a bit on the actual capacity of wind and solar versus the energy delivery of wind solar, specifically, on a cold day in Canada. In Alberta, how much power is produced by all our alternative energy, wind and solar versus their capacity? Any any clue of the numbers?

Chris Keefer  26:31  

Sounds like you've looked at them recently. I know these numbers are across Canada's older averages around 15% capacity factor, meaning it produces 15% of the installed amount that you've made, and when does usually run 30 35% candies are running over 90%.

Greg McLean  26:48  

Think that's capacity numbers. Canada, wind and solar combined to make up less than 1% of our electricity production. So let's accept that if wind and solar are our only options here, then Canadians will freeze in the dark, we need an actual energy solution like nuclear, that actually does provide some baseload power, not just some intermittency. Are you familiar with the cost of tying intermittent power into a sustainable power grid itself?

Chris Keefer  27:21  

One can look at the example of Germany which has the most expensive electricity in the EU. And in California as well. You know, while building a solar farm is cheap, the cost of the electricity produced when you flick the switch, you're not just getting solar energy, when the when the sun goes down, you're getting usually natural gas fired energy and those plants are not being run as efficiently because it's, it's like stop and go traffic instead of highway driving for the power plants backing things up.

Greg McLean  27:46  

You need us essentially a lot of inverters, a lot of built out of the power all of which are paid for by ratepayers, which in Canada are taxpayers at the same time. Because especially in Ontario, many in Quebec, many of the electricity, customers business wise or subsidized. Let's go into the dollars per kilowatt hour, if you will, how much was the dollars per kilowatt hour of production of Power BI nuclear, all lifecycle so capital cost everything.

Chad Richards  28:17  

So looking at numbers from last year, so I can't speak to life cycle, but I have in front of me numbers from the 2021 Ontario Energy Board. Total costs total total unit supply costs, and it's in cents per kilowatt hour. So the average residential price for power was 13.5 cents per kilowatt hour. When we look at combined nuclear in Ontario is 8.9 cents per kilowatt hour that it was the ratepayers were paying for the grid was paying for that power. When we look at solar, it's was 49.7 cents per kilowatt hour when 14.8 cents per kilowatt hour. So nuclear actually, despite some of the the rhetoric out there is actually one of the cheaper forms when it comes to ratepayer benefit,

John Aldag  29:00  

will now go to Mr. Smart for two points.

Mario Simard  29:04  

I have a quick question. For Mr. Keefer. We know that point loophole represents about $3 billion. I'm wondering if we were to compare the cost of kilowatt hours for hydro electricity and for nuclear production. What would that look like? Do you have any data on that?

Chris Keefer  29:38  

Mix the material for the question. I don't have data precisely on on New Brunswick. I think it's important to remember that nuclear plants were built instead of coal and gas plants. So you know our Pickering nuclear station here was built instead of a foreign gigawatt coal plant. I'm not sure what would have been built instead of pointless pro we should look at that. I bet you that it was cool. As you heard my colleague give you the numbers for here in Ontario nuclear is the second cheapest source of electricity after hydro. So I think it's a very good investment for point for New Brunswick to make appointlet Pro had a refurbishment. That plan is going to be operating into the 2040s 2050s, providing air pollution free, carbon free energy for the people of New Brunswick that is reliable, and I can get back to you on the numbers on it. I'm not an expert on New Brunswick nuclear, but thank you for the question.

Mario Simard  30:24  

I'll leave the last question to Mr. Morris,

Mike Morrice  30:31  

about the numbers already. Small Modular Reactor roadmap steering committee their forecast is the first SMR wouldn't go online until 2030. At 16.3 cents per kilowatt hour. Quebec is currently selling to New York at five cents per kilowatt hour. And so my question if we're going to take urgent action on climate change at the most cost effective way, what's your response to these kinds of figures?

Chris Keefer  30:53  

So you're back as we heard from our friend involved in the electric vehicle fleet is going to need to use a lot more of its own electricity. And we would be I think, shameless to freeload off of that generation that they've built there in Quebec, we each need to take responsibility for our own climate solutions. Not only if

Mike Morrice  31:10  

it's my time, sorry, Quebec is selling

John Aldag  31:13  

we're out of time is if we're going to play that I think, you know, we're back fresh and we've had some good good exchanges here today. And I appreciate all the witnesses for for joining us.

Chris Keefer  31:31  

If you enjoyed the podcast, please make sure to subscribe, like and review us on your podcast platform of choice. Until next time, guys