The Politics of a Canadian Nuclear Revival

00:00:02:20 - 00:00:19:12

Chris Keefer

Welcome back to the podcast. Today, I'm joined by Dr. Duane Bratt, who is a professor of political science at Mount Royal University in Calgary. We have our second Albertan on in, I think, as many weeks. Dr. Brandt, it's wonderful to have you here on decouple. Thanks for making the time.

00:00:19:14 - 00:00:21:10

Duane Bratt

happy to be here, Chris.

00:00:21:12 - 00:00:23:08

Chris Keefer

So, okay, if I call you Duane or.

00:00:23:10 - 00:00:27:09

Duane Bratt

yeah, absolutely. That's what my mom calls me.

00:00:27:11 - 00:00:47:21

Chris Keefer

Okay, Well, Duane, you're the author of a of two books. You kindly sent me this one here, The Politics of Candu Exports, but also this one here, Canada, sorry, Canada, the provinces, the global nuclear revival. Awesome books. The only problem I have is the binding is just terrible.

00:00:47:23 - 00:00:58:17

Duane Bratt

Yes, the mining with McGill Queen's University Press. Yes. It's it's not very good. But the the U of t press one is is much better.

00:00:58:19 - 00:01:21:08

Chris Keefer

So the binding not so good, the content excellent. And you know, I really regret it not having picked these books up earlier. I gave a talk to the Minerals Council of Australia on the topic of, you know, how Ontario decarbonize. And you know, I heard a bunch of facts from from conversations with some very well informed people, but great resource, you know, a fascinating time capsule as well.

00:01:21:10 - 00:01:49:02

Chris Keefer

So you published. Canada, the provinces in the global nuclear revival in 2012. You know, on our last episode, I was reflecting with James Crowe and Stein. We're talking about this current moment, and everyone seems hesitant to call it a renaissance because I think people really burned by that language back in the early 2000. And we were reflecting actually on how good things would have seemed around 2005, 26 even compared to now.

00:01:49:02 - 00:02:15:16

Chris Keefer

I mean, I would say 2018 was a real low point. We had, you know, a lot of projects that were just not moving. Well, the EPA's in France, if you want thousands in the U.S., we have this glut in natural gas prices and we had the Fukushima hangover. And so things feel great right now. But, you know, again, back into the naughties, as we call them, and in the U.K. sphere of influence, the early 2000 things look pretty good.

00:02:15:18 - 00:02:26:20

Chris Keefer

You wrote this. I guess, probably over a few years. Let's let's time travel back. Let's time travel back to when you wrote it, why you wrote it. And I don't know what. We'll explore some of the lessons there in.

00:02:26:22 - 00:03:03:16

Duane Bratt

Yeah, in in a sense, you can't understand the second book without that. The first book and the first book actually started as a master's thesis in the in the early 1990s that I kind of put that to aside and did a bunch of other projects and got my Ph.D. and I thought, no, I've got some stuff here. And then one my colleagues at the University of Calgary had some really good files around the sale to Argentina and South Korea, and I thought, No, I've got some additional material, let's finish this, put it to bed.

00:03:03:18 - 00:03:31:23

Duane Bratt

And then when I finished that book, it was like, I have nothing more to say. I've done, you know, this this job. And I can vividly remember sitting in the car with my wife in Calgary and a news program comes in about this Calgary entrepreneur looking to build a nuclear power plant in Alberta. And she looks at me, goes, Did you know about this?

00:03:31:23 - 00:03:57:09

Duane Bratt

I don't know. And she goes, Well, how many nuclear experts are there in Alberta? And I made some quip about, you mean outside of this car. And I realized that there was something else here. So it actually started with that. And there was so much optimism when I started the project and what we were seeing, we were seeing the beginning of the first Candu refurbishment in New Brunswick.

00:03:57:11 - 00:04:28:20

Duane Bratt

There was plans for a new build in Ontario, Saskatchewan, new Brad Wall comes to power and he's incredibly pro nuclear and creates this uranium development partnership. You got Hennessey, who was not a nuclear guy, was just a basic entrepreneur, which we have lots of in this province looking at it. But by the time I finished the book, a lot of that optimism was was gone.

00:04:28:22 - 00:05:02:22

Duane Bratt

And so it was a capsule in time. I think some stuff did occur, but not nearly what was expected at the time. Fast forward to today. There is a lot more going on and not just talking, but actual multibillion dollar projects. And just this week, you know, the announcement that the be is going to be refurbished in addition to Darlington and in addition to the the smaller fleet in Darlington.

00:05:02:22 - 00:05:20:19

Duane Bratt

And so there's there's so much more activity going on now than there was ten, 15 years ago. Despite that optimism, which is why I think people are a bit a bit gun shy to use that word revival or renaissance today.

00:05:20:21 - 00:05:35:16

Chris Keefer

Right. Right. No, I mean, I think it's very, very important. I've learned over the years in clinical practice and outside as well, to be super aware of what your biases are, the lenses through which you see the world, how they're distorted. We all have them. And, you know, I hate to say it, but I tend to be a bit of a pessimist.

00:05:35:16 - 00:05:43:12

Chris Keefer

So thank you for brightening my perception of where we are at the current moment with your your perspective from from back in the day.

00:05:43:14 - 00:06:05:19

Chris Keefer

You know, it is it is a fascinating elements of the story that, you know, we have this reactor design that we dreamed up that came out of. You know, I think a lot of, you know, nuclear advocates and industry folks probably don't like to talk too much about what the kind of original nuclear research that was going on up here was, whether it was the Manhattan Project North or not.

00:06:05:21 - 00:06:24:13

Chris Keefer

But certainly, you know, that it was it was the war. We didn't want Hitler to get the bomb first. And there was a massive investment in North America in trying to get there first. So could you tell me a little bit about just sweeping way back in time? And I think you cover this in the exports book, but I thought some of that history.

00:06:24:15 - 00:06:58:18

Duane Bratt

It's an absolutely fascinating story of how Canada ended up on the ground floor of the nuclear sector. And we had the first or sorry, the the the the first country outside the U.S. to have a functioning reactor to have nuclear fission. And a lot of it was because of the threat to Britain. And so the British scientists came to Canada because we were still much more closely aligned with Britain in the in the 1940s than we are, for example, today.

00:06:58:20 - 00:07:24:15

Duane Bratt

And so we had this influx of British scientists combined with European refugees from Germany, from France, who joined that team, came here. So it was considered a safe place to work. And we set up a lab in Montreal plus our uranium deposits. And at that time it wasn't about northern Saskatchewan, it was northern Ontario, it was Elliot Lake.

00:07:24:17 - 00:07:49:01

Duane Bratt

And so they they created this lab. It was in partnership with the Americans for the Americans had a couple of labs. We had the one in Montreal, and we were all working together on a weapons system, you know, to get it first before the Germans did. But even during that time, all the participants and the British included were all thinking, what happens next?

00:07:49:01 - 00:08:25:11

Duane Bratt

They all saw that this had huge civilian capabilities. And where the Candu comes about is general Groves. Leslie Groves And if you remember the old movie, Paul Newman plays him Fat Man and Little Boy Groves is is the military person absolutely paranoid about secrecy? And he unilaterally ends all cooperation with the Canadians in the British in the middle of the Manhattan Project for about a year, maybe a bit less than a year.

00:08:25:13 - 00:08:53:08

Duane Bratt

And it wasn't until the Atlantic Summit and Churchill that Roosevelt and King all agree on this. And then that brings everybody back together again. But what happened in that time period is the Canadians started doing independent work from the project, and that's the origins of the heavy water reactor system that would become the candu within that small window where you had all of these scientists.

00:08:53:10 - 00:09:27:02

Duane Bratt

You have ended the cooperation with the Americans, but they don't put their tools down and they don't put their pencils down and they continue working and create this. And there's an irony here that Groves was concerned about creating not just secrets, leaving. They were even though the Soviets were an ally, they were very suspicious of the Soviets, but they created a competitor, a civilian competitor, because of his actions, which I don't think he recognized at the time.

00:09:27:02 - 00:10:01:03

Duane Bratt

So it is it is a fascinating story. And the other aspect of this, which I touch on is there was no debate either in Canada or in Britain to pursue the bomb in Britain. It was just assumed that they were going to get their own bomb because that's what great powers did in Canada. It was just assumed we were not going to pursue the bomb because we were not a great power and therefore we put all of our energy into the civilian process.

00:10:01:09 - 00:10:29:21

Duane Bratt

The British screwed up their civilian process because I think they put so much energy. They had the gas fired cooling system that the Magnox reactors just did not work very well. And I think it's because there was a disconnect between the military wing and the civilian, which had we didn't have that. But people have tried to go through the archives to see where the cabinet made this decision, where this debate occurred.

00:10:29:21 - 00:10:37:18

Duane Bratt

There was no debate. We just naturally assumed we weren't going to do that. And we our focus was on civilian energy.

00:10:37:19 - 00:10:46:04

Chris Keefer

All right. I mean, this heavy water story is fascinating. We have covered it quite a while ago with Jeremy Whitlock, who's a great guy over at the IAEA involved.

00:10:46:04 - 00:10:49:15

Duane Bratt

And Jeremy's great. Yeah, he's he's sharp.

00:10:49:17 - 00:11:08:17

Chris Keefer

And so, I mean, the story of the heavy water war, you know, this this plant in Norway, I think, was a hydroelectric facility that they were making heavy water at. I'm not sure what the purposes were at that point, but certainly the German bomb program with Heisenberg was heavy water based. And the way that the heavy water as as Norway's being invaded by the Germans was secret it out.

00:11:08:19 - 00:11:20:13

Chris Keefer

I think first through France and decoy boats and ships and things like that, getting it over to England and does that where the heavy water that we use, you know in the Montreal lab and later at Chalk River, it came from.

00:11:20:15 - 00:11:49:04

Duane Bratt

I believe some of it did come from that because, you know, heavy water does occur naturally. But in very, very rare circumstances and it needs to be constructed. And in fact, one of the reasons we pursued heavy water was to use natural uranium, that it didn't require the enrichment capacity that the Americans did, which again, is also tied into the to the bomb program.

00:11:49:10 - 00:12:07:10

Duane Bratt

And so it was a nice mixture. But yeah, that the story of of Norway and how they got the heavy water out of Norway with the Nazis, one step behind them is it's a thriller and there actually was a mini series on Netflix about that that was quite entertaining.

00:12:07:12 - 00:12:30:05

Chris Keefer

I totally agree. I totally agree. And just before we kind of move on closer towards the present, I just think this origin story is fascinating. I mean, heavy water was used, I think, in the production of some of the potential bomb material that went into a little boy in Fatman. Maybe I'm maybe I'm off on that. But I think the Hanford reactors for plutonium production in the U.S. were also heavy water reactor.

00:12:30:05 - 00:12:45:00

Chris Keefer

So so there is this, you know, while Canada went the civilian route and we know later on with the exports of some technology in cooperation with the US India, that led to a proliferation issue there, I'm just I'm just wondering if we could explore that a tiny bit more.

00:12:45:02 - 00:13:14:16

Duane Bratt

So there is a lot of discussion about whether they can use, because of their design, are a greater proliferation risk than a light water reactor. I've looked at that. I'm not convinced of that. I think both of them have potential flaws that can lead to proliferation. Both of them have safeguards that are inherent in the system, and it depends on where you're coming from.

00:13:14:16 - 00:13:46:15

Duane Bratt

So if you're an anti-nuclear activist and you're based in Canada, you get fixated on the refueling capability of of heavy water or the ability of of natural uranium, the mixture with plutonium, and you ignore the light water proliferation risk. Likewise, if you're an activist in the United States, you do the exact opposite. So I'm not convinced it's actually and I've never believed that it's a technological issue.

00:13:46:17 - 00:14:22:11

Duane Bratt

It is, in fact, a political issue around proliferation. And I make this clear to my students, and I give this line about, well, the first country to develop a nuclear weapon was a third world country. And they all kind of looked at me and go, Yeah, but wasn't that the United States? I said, Yes, it was. But if you look at the level of technology the Americans had the 1940s and compare it to today, I've got more computing power in my phone than the Americans did in the 1940.

00:14:22:11 - 00:14:54:04

Duane Bratt

So it's not a technological problem. It's a political problem. And so focusing on a reactor design, if you want to build bombs, it is so much easier and simpler just to go build the bomb than try to divert spent fuel from a reactor and convert it into weapons grade uranium or weapons grade plutonium for a bomb. They do that for political purposes, not for cost or technological purposes.

00:14:54:04 - 00:15:17:04

Duane Bratt

They do it to to mask what it is that they're doing. And quite frankly, we did see a lot of that in the 1950s and sixties with countries using civilian energy as a as a mass to get to a weapon system. But they also discovered, as the Brazilians did and the Argentinians did, just how difficult and complicated it is.

00:15:17:06 - 00:15:38:16

Chris Keefer

Yeah, I mean, there's there's the difficulty of actually making the device and then to be able to have the the threat of deploying it, you know, the nuclear triad with submarines, missiles and aircraft delivery and then the ability to respond back, it, it seems like that became too costly, as you said, for Brazilians, Argentineans, Swedes, a whole number of countries had had weapons programs they abandoned.

00:15:38:16 - 00:15:43:04

Chris Keefer

And we're left with what I think seven nuclear nations or what we've got.

00:15:43:06 - 00:16:12:04

Duane Bratt

We've got nine right now. We've got the five big countries that that were part of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the the Americans, the Russians, the Chinese, the French and the British. And then since then, you've got India, you've got Pakistan, you've got North Korea, and you have Israel. Israel's never officially tested, but it's well acknowledged that they have the they have the bomb.

00:16:12:06 - 00:16:36:16

Duane Bratt

And I mean, North Korea has basically starved its people to produce a bomb. So it's not technologically sophisticated to do. Now it you just have to have the political will to do it. And the Iranians are working really hard at it, but they're facing sabotage and other domestic problems in that country as well.

00:16:36:18 - 00:17:01:06

Chris Keefer

Right. Right. So getting back again to the pursuit of this Candu reactor design, I'm thinking, you know, in the U.S., the first commercial nuclear power plant believe shipping port and that came out of the nuclear propulsion system with Rickover and sort of settled in on the P.W. are and I guess later the boiling water reactor came along the Brits were there first reactors magnox gas reactors in the Soviet Yeah I'm just trying to put this all together.

00:17:01:06 - 00:17:06:18

Chris Keefer

Are they RBM case or what? It sounds like there is a number of designs that proliferated and there.

00:17:06:18 - 00:17:48:03

Duane Bratt

Are a lot of different designs because it was right at the beginning and everybody was experimenting on the best way of doing things. And especially with the countries that had a weapons program like, like the British and, and, and the Russians, you know, that's where they they went about doing it. What is more fascinating, I think, is is the French and how they kind of combined American technology with German technology in addition to their own pursuit of, you know, the forces of rap, their their own independent nuclear weapons system as well.

00:17:48:05 - 00:18:12:21

Duane Bratt

And so what makes Canada unique amongst all of these countries in the forties, fifties, even into the sixties, is we were only working on the civilian side. We were not working on the military side. And so there was no crossover there. In fact, our military process ends, you know, in 1945 and.

00:18:12:23 - 00:18:27:16

Chris Keefer

You know, not not that we should feel sort of too noble about that, because I think, as your book explains, Canada did host U.S. nuclear weapons on Canadian missiles and also just full on US nuclear weapons delivery systems, I believe, Newfoundland and elsewhere.

00:18:27:18 - 00:19:04:16

Duane Bratt

Yeah, yeah. Up until, you know, the late seventies, you know, we historians often talk about the great battle that brought down the economic environment in 1963 over hosting American nuclear weapons on on Canadian soil. But in end but in fact, it remained for years after that. And I would even make the case now we're still protected by the American nuclear umbrella, even though there's no weapons on our soil, which the Indians are quick to point out.

00:19:04:18 - 00:19:14:12

Duane Bratt

You know, the some of the hypocrisy that Canada has given to the Indians and the Pakistanis saying, yes, but you are also very well-protected there.

00:19:14:14 - 00:19:33:00

Chris Keefer

Right. Right. That's interesting. Okay. This is going to be a slight tangent and we can snuff that if we have to. But, you know, in terms, again, of talking about nuclear weapons and delivery systems, you know, Canada develop the Candu reactor. This is one of, you know, been rated one of our top ten engineering achievements. Another one of those top ten, I believe, was the Avro Arrow.

00:19:33:02 - 00:19:56:13

Chris Keefer

It was widely recognized as being the world's best fighter interceptor at a time in which we wanted to get up to like Mark to Mach three. I think, you know, intercept those Russian bombers before they came over. Is that a true narrative, that part of, you know, it's many reasons and hypotheses why the air was scrapped. But one reason was because we're thinking that the delivery systems are now ICBMs are not intercontinental ballistic missiles rather than than airplane delivery.

00:19:56:13 - 00:19:56:21

Chris Keefer

Yeah, it.

00:19:56:21 - 00:20:36:16

Duane Bratt

Was it was it was where that was moving and it was going to missile systems away from fighter planes. It was also the issue of cost. There is so much mythology around the Avro Arrow and the Remain. You know, people whose hobby it is, you know, just to study the Avro Arrow, which the the linkage between the candu in the Avro I think is very important because when they shut down the Avro Arrow and that may been very well justified based on cost and the change in nature of future warfare, it's where those scientists and engineers went.

00:20:36:16 - 00:21:00:14

Duane Bratt

Many of them ended up in innocent. Many of them had to leave the country and work elsewhere because there was no work for them to do here. Why that is significant is that memory has been linked back to the candu that we don't want to repeat what we did with the Candu scientists and the Candu engineers and the Candu technology with what we did with the everywhere.

00:21:00:16 - 00:21:26:12

Duane Bratt

And so we often talk about mythologies which are not true. They're not false. It's belief systems. And that belief system has been very powerful and that if you walked into a cabinet room and you were making the pitch for further investment in the candu and export support and R&D, all you had to do was bring up the memory of the everywhere.

00:21:26:13 - 00:21:41:17

Duane Bratt

And so regardless of whether the average decision was correct or not, and and I tend to be on the on the side of the historians that say, yes, it was the right call. That's not the way the public viewed it. And it's still not the way it's viewed today.

00:21:41:18 - 00:22:09:21

Chris Keefer

Right. Right. Well, we're going to get to that because, you know, your book in the entire chapter does discuss the potential new build or potential as it was when you wrote the book New Large Nuclear at Darlington in that period of sort of 2008 to 2013. So we're going to we're going to touch on that and we're going to touch on the sort of technology selection and arguments about whether we should have gone with a foreign reactor technology or stayed stayed Canadian.

00:22:09:23 - 00:22:35:06

Chris Keefer

But before before we get there, I want to set the table a little bit more. When I gave that talk in Australia, Dylan Moon, who who consults with me, pointed me towards some some really interesting graphs of the price of coal after the opiate crisis. Obviously price of oil went through the roof, but we were still or some countries were burning oil for electricity and there was a shift to coal and probably other reasons why coal got expensive.

00:22:35:08 - 00:22:53:15

Chris Keefer

But it seems, you know, when I look at nuclear, I look, you know, I'm avidly pro-nuclear, but I think I'm not delusionally pro-nuclear. It's a really hard technology. It requires the best of the best. Maybe it requires some people coming into the Avro program to help get it launched. But but it's hard, you know, and it's easier to do other things.

00:22:53:15 - 00:23:13:00

Chris Keefer

And you only do nuclear if there's really an imperative there. And usually it's energy security situation. And so France obviously heavily dependent on oil for electricity production after OPEC went nuclear. And it was interesting seeing that story in Ontario and you touched on it a bit more in terms of where we were getting the coal from to to fire that that coal fleet we had.

00:23:13:00 - 00:23:17:20

Chris Keefer

And some of the pragmatics of why Ontario in particular went nuclear. Can you can you expand?

00:23:17:21 - 00:23:46:06

Duane Bratt

There is there's so many comparisons to the decision of France to go nuclear, the decision of Japan to go nuclear, and the decision of Ontario to go there. And it was all about energy security, security in the sense of supply and as well as security of price and the volatility of price. So France and Japan really ramped up most of that.

00:23:46:08 - 00:24:11:10

Duane Bratt

And France relied on the uranium deposits of its former French colonies in West Africa. Japan has nothing. They don't have gas. They don't have oil, they don't have coal. They don't have uranium. But they figured that because of the there's less volatility with the uranium price as it relates to nuclear energy than it is with gas with a gas plant.

00:24:11:15 - 00:24:45:07

Duane Bratt

And that's why Japan went there. Ontario made almost the same rationale and decision, but it was about coal. We Ontario had already tapped out much of its hydro, even though they kept calling it Ontario Hydro. That there wasn't much more hydro after they tapped Niagara Falls and some other areas. So they were relying heavily on coal. But there's no poll in Ontario, so the coal was either coming from western Canada or it was coming from Cape Breton or was coming from the United States.

00:24:45:09 - 00:25:18:23

Duane Bratt

Well, to get it across, you're dealing with the Great Lakes. And, you know, it was a whole lot colder back in the 1950s and the Great Lakes would often freeze over. And it was tough getting access there. And the Americans the coal mining union was so powerful in West Virginia and Kentucky, there would be frequent strikes. So there were shortages of getting coal to come to Ontario and Ontario had this burgeoning manufacturing sector in steel and particularly automobiles.

00:25:19:01 - 00:25:59:10

Duane Bratt

And to keep that electricity flowing, they needed a different source. That's why Ontario with nuclear. So you've got the the situation of the Montreal lab. So the infrastructure is starting in Montreal, but very quickly, everything moves over to Ontario. And that's why to this day, arterial is the heart and center of the nuclear industry in Canada because of the decisions that both the Ontario government and the Canadian government made at the same time to develop nuclear in the province of Ontario because of the issues with coal.

00:25:59:12 - 00:26:16:12

Chris Keefer

I mean, there's there's parallels there. I've spoken with some experts about China's rationale for nuclear. They have a lot of coal, but it's in the wrong place in the country. It's often the Northwest and their population centers are on the coast of the southeast. And I think it's something like 50% of all rail traffic was just moving that coal around.

00:26:16:14 - 00:26:39:18

Chris Keefer

So a huge, huge expense there. So that's interesting context. You know, we had this coal phaseout much publicized between 2005 and 2014. It's been called North America's greatest greenhouse gas reduction. You know, we had massive problems with air pollution, certainly partially from the automobile sector, but the coal didn't help until a medical association said 1900 premature deaths per year as a result of that air pollution which coal contributed to.

00:26:39:23 - 00:26:58:21

Chris Keefer

And it's much celebrated. But a lot of people scratch their heads and they go, Well, hold on, You didn't build any new nuclear reactors during that time. But, you know, for me, looking at back into the history, I say, well, the coal phase of began in 19. I'm trying to think when Douglas Point came online but probably we should probably talk more Pickering Pickering was built instead of a coal plant.

00:26:58:23 - 00:27:02:00

Chris Keefer

You talk a little bit about that about you know again, the.

00:27:02:00 - 00:27:31:02

Duane Bratt

Subject, of course, is there was a coal phaseout, but they fixate on the final ending of the plants. Ontario had actually been phasing out coal probably since the late sixties and definitely the early seventies when when Pickering came on online because she didn't need as much coal. And so the percentage of coal was dropping. It was only in the McGuinty years that they finally got rid of the last plants.

00:27:31:04 - 00:27:54:06

Duane Bratt

And so the final coal phaseout, which people get fixated on, they often say it was due to renewables, it was due to to the rise of wind because there was an increase in wind going on at that time. But no, it was the restarting of the reactors that had been temporarily shut down by the Harris government in 1997.

00:27:54:07 - 00:28:18:01

Duane Bratt

It was the restarting of those nuclear power plants that allowed the McGuinty government to do so. And when you listen to Gerry Butz, people often say, Well, well, Butz was principal secretary to Trudeau, which he was, but he was also very highly involved in the McGuinty government. Butz is quite honest. He says it was nuclear energy that allowed us to do that, the coal phaseout.

00:28:18:03 - 00:28:38:15

Duane Bratt

So the coal phaseout went on for multiple decades and it was all due to nuclear energy. It was not about when, it was not about solar, it was not about gas plants. It was nuclear energy, both the building of Pickering and then the restarting of Pickering and Bruce in the early 2000.

00:28:38:17 - 00:28:49:05

Chris Keefer

Do you know the details around that, that actual deal? As I understand it, when Ontario Hydro built Pickering, some of the budgeting and costing had to do with being price competitive to cold it generally those details are.

00:28:49:06 - 00:29:29:15

Duane Bratt

Don't know both those but I think they were less focused on the weather. They had to subsidize the nuclear power plant because this was about subsidizing electricity to the auto sector. Right. And you know, I think there's a reason that Pickering was built in Pickering when you got the massive GM plant in Oshawa. Right. And so I don't know about the linkages with cost with coal, because it wasn't just the cost of coal, it was the reliability of getting coal supplies by train, by boat, dealing with American strikes, what have you.

00:29:29:17 - 00:29:51:16

Chris Keefer

So this this is very fascinating for me. But obviously there's been this sort of yoyo and dance. You know, we had a lot of nuclear on line and something went sort of terribly wrong in the nineties. You know, you mentioned the shutdown of of Bruce a and I guess Pickering a tell me a little bit more about about that period because right now, you know the nuclear sector has a lot to celebrate amazing operations.

00:29:51:16 - 00:30:03:19

Chris Keefer

You know we've been celebrating the Pickering refurbishment. They got the World association nuclear operators A-plus or level one. So they're doing a fantastic job running that plant. But things looked grim in the nineties. Tell me why and tell me that.

00:30:03:21 - 00:30:43:15

Duane Bratt

There was there was an absolutely scathing report that came out looking at some of the issues about the Bruce and Pickering facilities in the late 1990s to the terrorist government and it was sort of ad hoc modifications to the designs that had been occurring over multiple years. There were workplace issues, literally people showing up, operators intoxicated and drug issues and every possible thing that you could have happened which was affecting the performance and they concerned about potential safety.

00:30:43:17 - 00:31:18:22

Duane Bratt

And so they quickly shut down a third of the fleet that the oldest of the reactors. And it was it was a really gutsy call by the Harris government to to make. But I don't think they had much choice given public pressure that was facing them when these reports came out and they commissioned additional non Canadian nuclear experts to come in to talk about these things, but they didn't dismantle them and they didn't decommission them.

00:31:18:22 - 00:32:07:15

Duane Bratt

And they then they made the decision that they were going to restart these with additional work and and these sorts of things. But the other thing that they created was Bruce Power. This was a really important decision because it created competition within the nuclear sector. So even though Bruce remained a that the reactors were owned by the Ontario government, by bringing in a private sector operator, it forced competition with what would become OPG because they gave a contract to Bruce and said, If you can fire these things up and they're all safe and ready to go, you know there's a potential profit for you to to make.

00:32:07:21 - 00:32:23:14

Duane Bratt

And so I think by creating this competition within a government owned system, which is very hard to do, I think that really worked out in Bruce has become a great success story as a result of that.

00:32:23:16 - 00:32:58:07

Chris Keefer

Can you explore again a little bit why or if you're aware, what like why did the safety culture go to why did things get so grim? Because that that's that's massive. I mean, now after Fukushima, they shut down everything and this was came at a major cost in terms of the energy people like fetishize energy conservation. But there's evidence that thousands of elderly Japanese died in heat waves because they were just not enough electricity to go around, you know, and the cost to Japan of importing fossil fuels to replace that nuclear fleet, I think it was tens or even 100 billion in terms of cost per year.

00:32:58:07 - 00:33:07:06

Chris Keefer

But it's an enormous number. So there must have been an economic sacrifice to doing that, but it was felt necessary. So what what went so wrong was underinvestment was a you know, it just.

00:33:07:08 - 00:33:37:18

Duane Bratt

Is hard to know. And I think you would have to talk to some of the old timers that were there at the time to see how things had changed, because it's not like concerns around nuclear safety just emerged in Fukushima. I mean, we have Three Mile Island, 1979. We have Chernobyl in 1986. This is 1997. Right. We do know there is an awful lot of turmoil around Ontario Hydro and the nuclear facilities in the early 1990s under the Ray government.

00:33:37:19 - 00:34:23:14

Duane Bratt

Ray Ray comes in there. There is a recession, but they also come in with an anti-nuclear attitude as unfortunately too many NDP people have. And so there is all this stopping and starting of Darlington. They put some activists on the board of Ontario Hydro, whether that was a contributing factor or not, whether it was just lax, the Apple safety culture, because we've been doing this for 25 years without a problem, you know, it's like people making home renovations and modifications where you start off small, but 25 years later, it starts to look very different than the design that you had.

00:34:23:16 - 00:34:51:07

Duane Bratt

So I would speak to some of the old Ontario Hydro people if they're still around or around what happened. But there was clearly a cultural problem that had emerged. And while the unions and management seem to be on a much better page right now, they're both celebrating the refurbishment of Pickering BE That was not the case in the 1990s and there was a lot more hostility between management and the unions.

00:34:51:08 - 00:34:53:05

Duane Bratt

That may have also been a contributing factor.

00:34:53:11 - 00:35:12:11

Chris Keefer

Right, Right. Interesting. I mean, certainly nuclear is a high risk sector. I always make the comparison to aviation and Boeing really seems to have been going in the last little while, sounds like for organizational reasons in terms of, you know, change in management and different approach. So certainly these industries are vulnerable to.

00:35:12:12 - 00:35:41:19

Duane Bratt

Or maybe aviation is a good comparison because people don't count how many times a plane takes off and lands the account when it doesn't land. And it's the same thing. You can have a power plant. That's why we talk about, you know, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima. The fact that we can remember them shows how rare a nuclear accident actually is compared to, let's say, a coal mine or a pipeline.

00:35:41:21 - 00:35:50:15

Duane Bratt

But when it happens, it's big, just similar to aviation. So that's a very accurate.

00:35:50:17 - 00:36:19:12

Chris Keefer

Let's shift gears a little bit to talk about exports. We're going to talk later about, again, technology selection. The Darlington V that aborted process, but something that the Candu reactor gave us was the IP and the ability to to export, you know, there's been the French, you know, imported Westinghouse reactors and then digitized them and got the IP as recently as the early 2000s the Chinese negotiated Westinghouse and got the IP for the AP1000.

00:36:19:12 - 00:36:21:02

Chris Keefer

And now they're creating the.

00:36:21:02 - 00:36:22:23

Duane Bratt

Cap.

00:36:23:01 - 00:36:42:15

Chris Keefer

Cap 1014 hundred, which are essentially derivative of that. I don't think Canada would have been in a position, a big enough country, a strong enough sector to bargain with the Americans and say, Hey, give us the IP anyway, we had the IP. What did we do with it in terms of of exports? It's an unlikely story that we were competing with the big boys.

00:36:42:17 - 00:37:10:14

Duane Bratt

absolutely. And that's where my interest in nuclear energy came from was as part of Canadian foreign policy. And that's why the first book is about our exports and how we did about it. And it was recognized early on just how tough a fight Canada was going to be. Because if you look at who the other nuclear exporting companies or countries were, it was the biggest countries in the world.

00:37:10:14 - 00:37:43:13

Duane Bratt

And so yeah, we're a G7 country, but we were the seventh of the G7 countries. We're going head to head with the with the Americans and the and the Russians in the early years. And then the the the French and the Japanese start to come on side. So there be also, because of the nature both in cost, the types of technology and it's military applications, the Soviets weren't going to import American technology.

00:37:43:13 - 00:38:32:04

Duane Bratt

The Americans weren't going to import Soviet technology, you, the French franc, and you know, all of this stuff. There was huge, huge trade protectionism. And there is Canada with Crown Corporation going up against General Electric and Westinghouse, two of the largest companies in the world, with the full backing of the United States. So it was very difficult for Canada to to penetrate the fact that we did as much to the Indians, to the Pakistanis, to the South Koreans, to the Romanians, to the Argentines, to to the Chinese, I think is a testament to the technology that we had there was an acknowledgment, maybe not today, but definitely in the sixties and seventies, that the candu

00:38:32:04 - 00:39:05:21

Duane Bratt

is a real quality, powerful reactor, quite possibly better than the light water reactors that that Westinghouse were delivering. But the extra political baggage that went with them hindered our ability to to to sell. And it's similar to the old data versus VCR battles. You know, back in the day, initially, data was considered the much better technology. VCRs took over the market and that was it for data.

00:39:05:21 - 00:39:35:12

Duane Bratt

And that's why we often talk about the Betamax today. And so it was those political concerns. And so the fact that we achieved as much as we did that still has an impact today. So there is now an investment. Romania is now building an extra two can dos. We still have the intellectual property. We've done refurbishments, you know, in Argentina and the South Koreans.

00:39:35:14 - 00:39:43:23

Duane Bratt

We sold numerous reactors to the South Koreans, and the South Koreans are now their own exporters. So we kind of lost that.

00:39:44:00 - 00:40:08:13

Chris Keefer

So, you know, I have been trying to understand our current situation and, you know, the political landscape. You know, the Conservative Party is pretty regionalized. I mean, rural Canada across the country. But, you know, it certainly, you know, it's a Western party. And I think they tend to represent areas that are natural resource rich thinking of, you know, oil and gas, mining, etc..

00:40:08:15 - 00:40:36:23

Chris Keefer

And then you have kind of central Canada, you know, not that we're laggards in terms of natural resource development and interior Quebec, but, you know, these are real manufacturing hubs. And in terms of the kind of policies that are required to develop each of these sectors, it strikes me that more of a kind of oil and gas natural resource sector, if you can deregulate, maybe offer more competitive royalties, private business will come in and sort of take care of themselves and exploit your resource and, you know, hopefully get a nice chunk of it to do things for the country.

00:40:37:01 - 00:40:59:10

Chris Keefer

But in the high tech sector, particularly as a small nation in conservative politics, particularly sort of maybe I don't say neo conservative, but, you know, the more recent conservative politics are very sort of free market fundamentalists, very averse to what I've heard described as mercantilism of, you know, supporting a national player. But it seems like that's what's required.

00:40:59:10 - 00:41:04:03

Chris Keefer

And I'm guessing that's what was required in terms of these exports across the world.

00:41:04:05 - 00:41:33:06

Duane Bratt

Absolutely. And and we had a lot more Crown corporations back in that in the fifties and sixties. It was really it started under Mulroney where we started to privatize the the crowns. But prior to then it was because we were a small country trying to compete with others and it was access to capital and a feeling that private industry in a country this small despite being rich.

00:41:33:06 - 00:42:08:17

Duane Bratt

But we didn't see ourselves compare competing against New Zealand or Sweden or Ireland. We were competing against the United States. And that, I think required a Crown corporation. That didn't mean that there weren't private businesses that supported. There's a huge private nuclear component area in Ontario, but the design area was what was the Crown Corp, just as we saw in many other sectors, whether that was rail, whether that was aerospace.

00:42:08:18 - 00:42:37:18

Duane Bratt

And you make the comparison with with bomb barging, you're a private firm but had to rely heavily on government subsidies. And I would I don't have the actual figures, but I often joke it's got to be the most subsidized private company in Canadian history. And that's kind of where we were. So the conservative government's relationship with nuclear is really interesting because you look where nuclear is.

00:42:37:20 - 00:43:15:06

Duane Bratt

Saint John, New Brunswick, Durham Region, Bruce County, Chalk River, Ontario. They've always been represented by Conservative MPs that the Harper government, I think to be fair to the Harper government when they were in office, every time nuclear hit the news, it was a bad news story. You know, whether that was the the the problems over isotope production at Chalk River, whether that was, you know, the sticker shock of the of the new build costs in Ontario.

00:43:15:06 - 00:44:10:14

Duane Bratt

So they just wanted out They just wanted out. And and so they sold off the reactor division of ACL to SNC level even though it would be interesting if Mulroney hadn't spun off the isotope business from ACL, you know, back in the late eighties, early nineties, if ACL would have been a more profitable company after that, they seemed to take, you know, the stuff that could make money and pull it away and then complain why the existing companies still needed still needed investment and that whole arrangement remains quite, quite complicated because it appeared that when when SNC level and initially got the contracts and got the IP at a very, very low cost, that they

00:44:10:14 - 00:44:30:08

Duane Bratt

simply saw it as a reactor repair company and that their business was going to be refurbishment, not advancing the candu design and doing a new build. I think they believed that new were gone and that they were just going to be in this business for 30 or 40 years to keep some of them running.

00:44:30:10 - 00:44:57:12

Chris Keefer

No, I mean, that's that's certainly interesting. You know, I've had analysts on who tell me, you know, listen, a lot of reactor builds are loss leaders, but what you lock in are long term fuel and maintenance contracts, which ultimately are the basis of the business. And with the ways that we've seen new builds spiral out of control in the West, particularly in the 21st century, it's not surprising that a company might just want to get that low risk, high returns, steady income and can do offers that with with their regular refurbishments.

00:44:57:12 - 00:45:00:14

Chris Keefer

You go ahead and respond to that. But there's so many things about.

00:45:00:17 - 00:45:25:06

Duane Bratt

That in Ontario right now. I mean, you look at the the Ford government and its its decisions around and actually began under Wynne and McGuinty, but around refurbishment. Right. Instead of building new reactors, how about we take our existing reactors and just let them operate much longer? This isn't the case of your ten year old car. Try to get an extra five miles out of it or five years out of it.

00:45:25:06 - 00:45:47:21

Duane Bratt

I would compare it to a whole, you know, that might be 50 or 60 years of age, but it's still structurally sound. It just needs a new furnace, It just needs some new plumbing. And we know that the front end costs of nuclear are at the beginning. So the longer you can keep the thing running, the, the more economical it is.

00:45:47:23 - 00:46:05:01

Duane Bratt

And so I think that's the win. And Ford government should be thankful that they already had these existing plants, that their decision was just about keeping them open. And even Quebec now is reconsidering is for refurbishment of jetty two.

00:46:05:03 - 00:46:24:09

Chris Keefer

Absolutely. Yeah. There's so many threads to talk on here and I'm going to try and artfully find a way to do that because there's so much of interest. But I think the most natural place to go to is is that selling off of the reactor division of ACL. And we need to explore that a little bit more. I understand there were a number of countries that were interested.

00:46:24:15 - 00:46:38:08

Chris Keefer

There is even potential interest and I think paranoia from some of the nuclear industry and the unions in particular, that's a competitor nation like Areva might buy it just to kill it, to get rid of a competitor. That's interesting that Canada could even be a competitor in that regard again.

00:46:38:10 - 00:47:06:04

Duane Bratt

Areva was very they were they were lurking. Yeah, there is no doubt about that. Areva wanted access to that. And I think the the Harper government really, if they were going to privatize this, they had to privatize the Canadian because I think there would have been a public backlash as well as a scientific backlash. Have they had they done to a a foreign competitor?

00:47:06:04 - 00:47:13:06

Duane Bratt

Could that were I think that was a real threat at the time that this might be taken over by Areva in particular.

00:47:13:08 - 00:47:19:07

Chris Keefer

So who were the bidders eventually and what were the bids and who won? And, you know, I mean.

00:47:19:09 - 00:47:20:10

Duane Bratt

This is, isn't it?

00:47:20:12 - 00:47:36:18

Chris Keefer

It's an extraordinary story. Like I think cumulatively in the history of Canada's nuclear sector. I don't know how you do the economic calculations, but we're talking tens or maybe even $100 billion invested over the length of our nuclear program to develop this reactor technology. So you'd think it would sell for a pretty penny.

00:47:36:20 - 00:48:04:01

Duane Bratt

And it wasn't. It was about $15 Million to SNC level one. And, you know, SNC level one was the nuclear company had been involved for for decades large, powerful company. They've gone into disrepute over the last couple of years on numerous scandals, but they were they were a likely target the other would have been a consortium of non SNC.

00:48:04:01 - 00:48:27:07

Duane Bratt

But it's how they changed it because you've got this company that does R&D, that does reactor designs, that has liabilities, that has assets, but they hived off the reactor division company and left the lab. And so even though the lab is what we call a GoPro, it's government.

00:48:27:07 - 00:48:34:09

Chris Keefer

You're talking ACL here, you're talking about ACL, not not SNC it right now you're talking ACL, two divisions. So.

00:48:34:11 - 00:48:57:09

Duane Bratt

Yeah, Yeah. So what they did is they hived off the reactor division and sold that off, privatized that, but they kept the R&D and the labs and even though it's now privately operated, it's still government owned. And some of that is that is its legacy. So we often talk about, you, you know, nuclear waste as a spent fuel.

00:48:57:11 - 00:49:45:20

Duane Bratt

The Chalk River site has some areas you don't really want to go around and no one's going to take those assets over. And so that's why the government had to stay involved. Plus, they were concerns that the private companies were not going to do the R&D that was required. And so they got that off their plate. But in looking back now, ten years later, maybe 15 years later, what the Harper government was able to do is get rid of all these bad problems and the bad problems that all existed in the early 20 tens around the privatization, around the refurb and point, the pro around the isotopes, around the new reactor, those stories are all

00:49:45:20 - 00:50:10:05

Duane Bratt

gone now. And I think that then led the that the Band-Aid was peeled off, the scab was gone. Now the scab is healed and it's allowed the nuclear industry to do the multibillion dollar refurbishments and the exploration, the serious exploration of investments. So it's been a transformation. So here's the here's the of that.

00:50:10:06 - 00:50:30:13

Chris Keefer

Here's the crazy thing. In the context of us now having a potential new large build happening at Bruce, I understand Bruce Power was the other entity that was interested in buying the reactor division of Candu. Obviously we wouldn't have a technologist election if Bruce had bought Can do, but just tell me, why did that fall through? Because they were going to pony up a lot more money than S and C, I believe.

00:50:30:15 - 00:50:59:08

Duane Bratt

Yeah, and I don't know why. What happened with Bruce? I don't know. Again, because these are commercial agreements. There is a lot. So they would lay out options, you know, the publicly available documents, laid out options, but they never talked about the different bids that they received. Those have all been and sealed. And so I don't know what pulled Bruce out.

00:50:59:08 - 00:51:24:18

Duane Bratt

I know at that time Trans-Canada was one of the investors and Bruce left and they pulled out their investment. Whether that was all linked to to those bad times, I don't know. But that would have been a very interesting decision had they gone. Bruce instead of SNC, especially given what has happened to SNC since that sale.

00:51:24:20 - 00:51:47:19

Chris Keefer

So we did this beautiful we've been making a lot of connections between nuclear and aviation with the Avro Arrow, with the safety culture. But I'd like to make one more, and that is with the C-Series Bombardier jet, which I understand is a far superior model to what Airbus and Boeing had on hand in terms of fuel efficiency for a, I believe, a midsize passenger jet.

00:51:47:21 - 00:52:09:11

Chris Keefer

And ultimately, I think for very similar reasons. You know, this is probably a true Canadian story in terms of over and over again, we see this happening was sold off for a song to Airbus. I'm not sure how familiar with that story, but you think that's a good analogy to what happened to can do? I know they were sold off not to a national player, but do you see any similarities or lessons learned there?

00:52:09:13 - 00:52:41:18

Duane Bratt

absolutely. And I would say less about the selling off of the Candu reactor division as opposed to the spinning off of the isotope business that has occurred a decade prior, that has gone on to do very well and had that remain as part of a SEAL, who knows how life would have turned out. I guess getting you're not selling off Bombardier, you're selling off one possible profitable aspect of it.

00:52:41:18 - 00:52:45:01

Duane Bratt

And that's where I would make that comparison.

00:52:45:03 - 00:53:07:01

Chris Keefer

I guess the comparison I'm sure to make is you have this an excellent, amazing technology. Superior Jets. But maybe your country is too small in terms of like this maybe would be analogous to the export issue in Canada. Struggle to export Canada is an ultimate success to do it, but I guess there wasn't the gumption there. And the idea that Bombardier could compete with the big boys was, you know what?

00:53:07:01 - 00:53:19:23

Chris Keefer

Have enough endurance to be able to give buyers the certainty that they'd be around to do maintenance, etc. So ultimately they were bought off by a larger company. I'm interested in that sort of export side of it. Again, I'm not sure if you have that.

00:53:20:01 - 00:53:52:17

Duane Bratt

As I would. I would agree with that. In fact, I would say it was even tougher from both. There is a fascinating case study of the battles that they were having with Embry Eyre, the Brazilian company, and there was a World Trade Organization decision involving Air Wisconsin of all places. And both companies were trying to sell to Air Wisconsin these mid-sized jets, and both of them were heavily subsidizing one another.

00:53:52:17 - 00:54:21:21

Duane Bratt

So again, we weren't just dealing with Airbus and Boeing. Now we're dealing with Embry Air because we're now seeing the rise of Brazil, which has 250 million people versus our 40. So, yes, similar challenges. It's not always the technology. It's all the extra weight that you can put around those export opportunities, the salesmanship and the marketing. And except yeah.

00:54:21:23 - 00:54:44:09

Chris Keefer

I can ask you a leading question here, but it'll be interesting only because you're going to probably flesh it out a bit. But with, with the in the context of, you know, advanced engineering, high technology, you know, coming out of variety of different types of countries, of different sizes, is there such thing as a free market there when they're competing with one another or governments always end up backing?

00:54:44:11 - 00:55:06:02

Chris Keefer

Because I just I get this often I get this impression that that there's an elements within, you know, the Canadian I'm not talking about the political spectrum or that this is partizan but just there's a political tradition. Maybe it's a relatively new one that says we shouldn't we shouldn't back national champions because, you know, the market should decide and whatever best will happen, and that'll provide best value to consumers down the road.

00:55:06:04 - 00:55:14:07

Chris Keefer

That's certainly, I think, conflicts with you know, some more traditional conservative values. But I'm just I'm just trying to sort that out and understand it better.

00:55:14:09 - 00:55:45:12

Duane Bratt

Outside of elaborate econometric models that economists do. The free market doesn't exist. We've got all sorts of government regulations that are put in place. You look at foreign investment and yes, we're attracting foreign investment, but there's usually conditions and strings attached to that. You're looking at corporate dollars going into private business. Look at the battery plants in Windsor.

00:55:45:14 - 00:56:20:09

Duane Bratt

So the free market does not exist. There's different degrees of government intervention and different types of government intervention. And all countries have that. There's no ideal type, pure socialist system anymore and there's no ideal type capitalist system. It's all various forms of of government intervention, whether that's through antitrust, whether through that's through tax and subsidies, whether that's through regulation, whether that's investment rules.

00:56:20:11 - 00:56:47:19

Chris Keefer

Okay. I guess we'll finish on the export topic and then we're going to jump into this technology selection issue. One of the interesting parts from the politics of Canada exports was how close Canada came to selling candies to Japan. That would have been consequential for a variety of reasons. Obviously for economic reasons, Fukushima probably wouldn't have happened because candies can cool themselves for about seven days with thermal siphoning through the flooded steam generators.

00:56:47:21 - 00:56:56:12

Chris Keefer

We'll leave that question of the accident aside. But What what went on there? We had these amazing, successful bids in China, South Korea, Argentina, etc.. Why not?

00:56:56:13 - 00:57:27:11

Duane Bratt

Why not some very just the role that the and the American government had in Japan? And you also have to look at that time period. This is the 1970s. This is post OPEC. And we this is when we start to see the massive amounts of Japanese auto exports going into the United States, because now they're because of their small country and because gasoline was so expensive, they developed fuel efficient vehicles.

00:57:27:13 - 00:58:00:21

Duane Bratt

So they were able to have these fuel efficient vehicles that the big three were too late to come to the table with. And so you've got that going on now. You've got a desire of major American firms trying to sell nuclear energy to Japan. You also have a massive American military presence in Japan, and you've got pressure coming from the Reagan administration over over these auto things.

00:58:00:23 - 00:58:22:02

Duane Bratt

This seemed there was no way Canada was going to win. Canada came close. Canada had a good bid. Canada had a good reactor. And you think, well, what does autos have to do with nuclear energy? A lot. It's it would have been tough to imagine how Canada would have won in that fight.

00:58:22:04 - 00:58:45:11

Chris Keefer

Okay. Well, let's let's pivot in the time we have left to talk about this question of technology selection. When I read your book, there were so many echoes from what's going on now back to that bidding process at Darlington, B, for the license capacity there, which which still exists but is now being used for some hours. So help me paint the picture of what was going on there.

00:58:45:17 - 00:58:51:03

Chris Keefer

And I want to explore a little bit of how that unfolded and the politics of how that unfolded, etc..

00:58:51:05 - 00:59:21:08

Duane Bratt

So prior to that time in Ontario, there had never been a bidding process. You're going to build a reactor, you were going to build a can do. It was that simple. But Ontario decided that they wanted a competitive bid process. And so then you've got Areva coming in, you've got Westinghouse coming in, both of those were being aided and abetted through export financing from their governments.

00:59:21:10 - 00:59:59:00

Duane Bratt

But because ACL was in Canada, they were not eligible for any export financing. Had they had a sale bid trying to go to Argentina, they would have been eligible for export financing. So you have a situation where Ontario is creating for its own provincial political purposes, a bidding contest. They're looking for a competitive price. But the Canadian company, the Canadian champion, is running at an unlevel playing field to the foreign competitors.

00:59:59:02 - 01:00:30:10

Duane Bratt

And there was. And so you've got this fight going on between the Ontario government, which owns which would have owned the reactors and the federal government which owned ACL and we didn't see that when Pickering was built. We didn't see that when Darlington was built. There was close collaboration between the Ontario government and the Canadian government and ACL and Ontario Hydro, but not when 2010 came around.

01:00:30:12 - 01:00:50:11

Duane Bratt

And so we've got issues of federalism. We've got issues of of competing needs and expectations. And you're dealing with foreign competitors who have greater assets to play because of the nature of the market that they were delivering into.

01:00:50:13 - 01:01:14:11

Chris Keefer

And so so there's something for something very unique about Canadian nuclear history and the Candu reactor. And we actually didn't touch upon this part. But, you know, when we're talking about energy security and price security, there is also an element of manufacturability and fueling security. So, you know, we went with pressure tubes. We couldn't make heavy forgings for the pressure vessel.

01:01:14:11 - 01:01:33:07

Chris Keefer

We wanted natural uranium because we didn't want to rely on others for enriched uranium. And the side effect of that is this hyper localized supply chain. And I'm not sure if it's unique. I'm trying to think about the Russian or Chinese nuclear sectors. They're probably big enough that that they do have a, you know, 88 to 96% sort of in-country supply chain.

01:01:33:07 - 01:01:57:12

Chris Keefer

But certainly within the West now, nuclear has become, you know, a multinational endeavor and supply chain spanned the world. And there's heavy forgings in Japan or in Korea. Doosan and modules being made in check. Yeah, I think there's something special about the Canadian reactor design being all Canadian economic benefit GDP, tax revenues. You talk a little bit about that and how that fit into.

01:01:57:12 - 01:02:35:09

Duane Bratt

Developing and assisting the manufacturing sector as a whole. So you've got companies that may do nuclear business, but they can have spinoff products that go into other commercial entities. This allows for export opportunities and a whole variety of things. So yeah, the whole supply supply chain link is, is a really critical importance because the days of any product, whether that's a car or an Apple Watch or a television all being manufactured with all the IP and all the components from one country, those are long gone.

01:02:35:11 - 01:02:57:03

Duane Bratt

And it really is a globalized market, which is both an opportunity for Canadian firms as well as a threat for Canadian firms. And some are. But some of the stuff, as you're correct, are just so specialized that I feel that we're we've lost some of that capacity.

01:02:57:05 - 01:03:00:03

Chris Keefer

Can you expand up on that? What sort of capacity has been lost?

01:03:00:05 - 01:03:10:18

Duane Bratt

Well, some of those heavy forages, you know, you start to lose that capacity if you're not building it right, if you're not rebuilding. Right. And we know.

01:03:10:20 - 01:03:11:17

Chris Keefer

We didn't have that.

01:03:11:17 - 01:03:14:01

Duane Bratt

Before, of course. Yeah.

01:03:14:03 - 01:03:19:07

Chris Keefer

My understanding was we didn't have the heavy forging. So we went with this pressure to design because we could manufacture that locally.

01:03:19:09 - 01:03:29:10

Duane Bratt

Yeah, I'm moving a bit further away from my area, but obviously supply chain is is critical here for sure. And then I'll become an international supply chain.

01:03:29:12 - 01:03:53:17

Chris Keefer

Yeah. Yeah. In terms of again, the politics of how that played out, I understand that ACL and maybe a SNC at the later part of the bidding process, they were sort of forbidden from talking about that question of local economic development. Was that was that something that was still a consideration? And again, with this current bid, we don't know who the owner of the reactors at Bruce will be.

01:03:53:18 - 01:04:00:04

Chris Keefer

Was it clear then that OPG would be the the owners and we're doing the tax collection, or was the government Ontario involved in the tax collection?

01:04:00:04 - 01:04:23:22

Duane Bratt

How do I mean, at the at the end of the day, I mean, because this was aimed at Darlington, that would have been OPG and the Ontario government, it's always been clear that the Ontario government will own things. What the agreement is with Bruce is as an operator. So my guess is Bruce will operate these reactors. They'll be owned by OPG, which is owned by the Ontario government.

01:04:24:00 - 01:04:51:17

Duane Bratt

Then the question becomes, okay, if that's the arrangement, who makes the call on the technology, the owner or the operator? The idea, I guess, is that they would both come to an agreement. But what if they don't know who has the final thumb? I don't know. I mean, these are these are questions to discover, discuss, you know, on the same sort of.

01:04:51:19 - 01:04:52:20

Duane Bratt

Yeah.

01:04:52:22 - 01:05:13:06

Chris Keefer

In your book, you talk a lot about the kind of anti-nuclear and pro-nuclear coalitions. I'm much more interested in the pro-nuclear ones for obvious reasons. But in terms of this question of of that coalition that came together in Darlington and will likely come together around the Bruce bed, you know, in talking to some of my union friends, when it comes to the smart technology that's been selected, it's at Darlington.

01:05:13:06 - 01:05:30:23

Chris Keefer

It's an American style boiling water reactor, enriched fuel. You know, they're really alarmed because they say, listen, you know, the crews that are going to come in and swap out the fuel and manage the outages of a boiling water reactor will be specialized crews from the U.S. they manage I'm not sure if it's 30 or 40 of those reactors.

01:05:30:23 - 01:06:07:14

Chris Keefer

They just go around from reactors reactor all year long and they're amazing at it. That's why U.S. has some of the highest capacity factories in the world. And so it wouldn't make any economic sense for Canadians to do that work. And so they're seeing a chunk of potential work disappearing. And, you know, if we if we have a American style reactor as a smaller one to fit with maybe Alberta, Saskatchewan and other provinces in an American style reactor for our larger needs, one can imagine there's going to be sacrifices of, again, large chunks of of the existing Canadian supply chain, whether that's fueling, whether that's engineering services that support troubleshooting the Candu reactor.

01:06:07:16 - 01:06:12:03

Chris Keefer

How how did that play out during the 2009 bidding process?

01:06:12:05 - 01:06:40:22

Duane Bratt

Yes. So when we talk about these these coalitions what unites the coalition is a whole series of belief systems around the importance of nuclear energy and the value that that brings. But then you see break breaks within the coalition when it comes down to commercial interests. So you can have three different companies all agree the importance of nuclear, all working together to get nuclear.

01:06:41:00 - 01:07:06:10

Duane Bratt

Now they're competing for design and then that starts to break things, break things down. And the smart decision was, I think, so critical because they were first. And the only way SMR makes monetary sense is to build a fleet, not to have a series of one offs. So when I made the decision to go to Itachi, well, guess what?

01:07:06:12 - 01:07:40:20

Duane Bratt

Now Saskatchewan is going to be attached and Alberta has made the design. But the relationship between OPG and Capital Power and OPG has already made the decision around to attach it. You can see where this is going, at least from the estimates. Well, now we've got a traditional reactor project going on. And Bruce, do you go with a different design, a an updated can design for the traditional and a different design for the same arch?

01:07:40:22 - 01:08:04:04

Duane Bratt

Right. These are some of the questions that I think are going to be post. I don't think we can have the answers now, but that's where the questions are going to be. Just as it didn't make sense in Canada in the in the sixties to have more than one reactor design. I don't think it makes sense at a similar level to have more than one reactor design.

01:08:04:06 - 01:08:25:17

Duane Bratt

But can you have different designs for a 700,000 megawatt reactor versus a two 5300 megawatt reactor? Those are some really interesting economic, technological, manufacturing, political types of questions. And you're not going to get unanimity on that.

01:08:25:19 - 01:08:36:01

Chris Keefer

I'm going to have to quote Britney Spears here and say, oops, I did it again. I've pulled you from Alberta and we've focused almost exclusively on Ontario. So I apologize to my Western Canadian.

01:08:36:06 - 01:08:39:11

Duane Bratt

no, that's fine. I mean, that's part of the industry.

01:08:39:12 - 01:08:57:02

Chris Keefer

But but I think I think, you know, we don't have time to sort of go through each province, as your book did. I'd encourage listeners to buy the book and invest in some duct tape to fix the blinding. But, you know, I think there are some interesting themes. You covered Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick. Obviously, Quebec has a nuclear program.

01:08:57:07 - 01:09:25:09

Chris Keefer

But I think what's really interesting is, you know, we've got these hydro powers, whether it's Manitoba, Quebec and B.C., I mean, what I used to say were inexhaustible hydroelectric potential. And so why would they ever go nuclear? But as you mentioned, with Quebec, they're talking about potentially bringing mothballed candu back online. There's some whisperings in B.C. and they're trying to investigate, you know, these these very ambitious climate goals that are going to require significant growth in their grid and they're struggling with drought.

01:09:25:09 - 01:09:41:18

Chris Keefer

We we don't usually you know, we're very quick to understand that wind and solar are intermittent and weather dependent, but hydro is guess climate dependent. And we've seen some major issues with droughts across the country this year that have affected output. So maybe let's let's talk a bit about those hydroelectric.

01:09:41:19 - 01:10:09:07

Duane Bratt

Yeah, I mean, there is there is a major press conference yesterday in Alberta where they're saying we're at a stage four level of drought. Stage five is a they have to bring in the national emergency. So they're very worried about drought coming in in the summer and so is the B.C. government and so is the Manitoba government and so is the Quebec government not about agriculture and water supply, but their electricity supply because of hydro.

01:10:09:12 - 01:10:40:23

Duane Bratt

And I don't think it's a coincidence that the the Gentoo refurbishment is back on the table. That's been a political football for a decade. It is clear that Hydro-Quebec wants to restart it. The Quebec government does not. But this may now be forcing their their hand and the B.C. government the very fact that BC's even saying the word nuclear without spitting afterwards I think tells you the concern that they're that they're having.

01:10:41:04 - 01:11:07:00

Duane Bratt

So of those places I think Quebec is much more likely because they have the existing facility and it would be similar to what they did with Bruce and Pickering way back in the day. You know, they're saying, well, it's been ten years. Yeah, well, it was about ten years that they restarted the Bruce reactors. So I think that's the they the the parallel that they have there.

01:11:07:01 - 01:11:38:17

Duane Bratt

But really, I think you're back to Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick, Ontario obviously has the most activity, but there is some serious stuff going on out in the prairies, much more serious that even back in 2010. So and and the connection I'm making is that that agreement feasibility study between OPG and capital power, that that's big because they're they're not talking about the oilsands this isn't the Pathways Alliance.

01:11:38:22 - 01:12:00:21

Duane Bratt

This is a large privately owned electricity generating company in Alberta thinking about putting it directly on the grid and linking themselves up with OPG, you know, who owns the reactors, been operating the reactors, so that that's not just a couple of guys at a room. These are big players.

01:12:00:23 - 01:12:22:17

Chris Keefer

Absolutely. I guess in closing, you know, as we mentioned in terms of the early deployments in Ontario, Japan, France, etc., you know, these were driven by the energy security imperative. You know, there's certainly a lot of talk about doubling or tripling our grid due to climate driven goals of electrification. And I think those are all well and good.

01:12:22:17 - 01:12:44:19

Chris Keefer

But again, maybe it's the pessimist in me. I think it's easy to talk and set goals and make commitments. It's easy to build, you know, wind farms and solar farms, those are highly constructed, all highly modular projects, you know, and I guess with a lot of public supports and a good narrative behind them, nuclear is again, it's the hardest of hardware's.

01:12:44:19 - 01:13:10:22

Chris Keefer

It's it's very tricky. It requires exceptional levels of institutional maturity, incredible human resources. And those are dwindling at times demographically. And so I've wanted to get your your your thoughts, because it seems like the that key driver of energy security is potentially not there. I mean, Alberta is awash in oil and gas, Saskatchewan as well, you know, BC I'm not so sure.

01:13:10:22 - 01:13:30:05

Chris Keefer

Maybe they'll be more climate driven. But I guess just in closing the climate talk versus the energy security imperative, is there sufficient energy imperative there to drive these provinces to do the incredibly technically difficult, financially difficult thing of of building nuclear?

01:13:30:07 - 01:14:07:04

Duane Bratt

It's not just about energy security. It really is climate and it is the recognition that they have to scale down emissions. And so the debate in Alberta is not about nuclear replacing the oil sands. It's about nuclear aiding and helping the oil sands drive down its emissions cost because those are long term 20, 30, 50, 60 year debates as opposed to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which hopefully will be over soon.

01:14:07:04 - 01:14:48:00

Duane Bratt

And the effects that that has energy security. I still think it is the climate debate that is not going away. Investors insurance companies, even if you get rid of the consumer carbon taxes, it's probably up. It's promising. There's still going to be work being done at the industrial level. And so what has changed, I think, is not is is the realization at least here in Alberta of the big energy companies that nuclear is not a competitor, it's an A it's a hell.

01:14:48:00 - 01:14:56:06

Duane Bratt

It's assistance that they can work together. And I think that's that's something that has has changed.

01:14:56:08 - 01:15:15:06

Chris Keefer

Do you see I mean, we're certainly seeing farmers protests in Europe. We had the yellow vests some time ago. You know, when it comes down to an affordability crisis, you know, climate does take the back when when people are surveyed and said how much money would you put per year into fighting climate change? It's like $100 or less.

01:15:15:07 - 01:15:39:03

Chris Keefer

I'm just, you know, in my pessimistic anticipation, perhaps of of further economic hardship or recession, etc., you know, Bryce and I think Roger Pilkey talk about this iron law of electricity that in the end you'll use any fuel, you'll burn anything to get the electricity that you need. Obviously, it's lovely if it can be free. And I'm a climate hawk, but again, I'm a little bit of a cynic, like are we seeing a rollback of ESG?

01:15:39:03 - 01:15:55:22

Chris Keefer

Are we going to see a rise of governments in Europe that are more on the political rights and are saying, hey, these these green energy policies have been disastrous, we're industrializing, we're losing business in a kind of whiplash and backlash against climate action. You think that's on the horizon and you think that would affect again, I.

01:15:55:22 - 01:15:56:03

Duane Bratt

Mean, the.

01:15:56:07 - 01:15:58:19

Chris Keefer

Imperative for nuclear.

01:15:58:21 - 01:16:19:10

Duane Bratt

That is in effect. But in Europe, in the case of Canada, and I would also say in Europe, it's what I would call the direct costs versus the indirect costs, an I often use the comparison of the GST. The GST caused a firestorm when it was introduced. This is the.

01:16:19:10 - 01:16:20:17

Chris Keefer

Goods and sales tax for my.

01:16:20:17 - 01:16:53:11

Duane Bratt

International goods. Sales tax, Yeah, but it replaced a much worse indirect tax. But because it was now visible, consumers realized it and rebelled. Same thing with the carbon tax. We had an industrial carbon tax in Alberta since the Stelmach days in 2006 2007, the Kenney government, which railed against the consumer carbon tax in this province, increased the industry carbon tax.

01:16:53:17 - 01:17:22:06

Duane Bratt

So I think we need to separate the indirect to direct. So yeah, I think the consumer tax is under great strain in Canada. Clearly polyethylene as the tax message is, is resonating. You'll notice he doesn't talk about industry, right? He doesn't. So that's that's a separate thing. And it's because even if it's worse, if it's not in your face, it's less of a concern to you.

01:17:22:06 - 01:17:58:09

Duane Bratt

It's those visible policies that you can see and touch, that those lead to the backlashes. And you're dealing with the professionals, the scientists, the engineers who really know this stuff know what is coming as opposed to the mass public. When you're talking about industry levels and regulation levels. So I'm a bit more optimistic on that said, I share your pessimism about the consumer carbon, but I'm I'm more bullish that we'll still see work on climate at the industry level.

01:17:58:11 - 01:18:18:15

Chris Keefer

Interesting. Okay. Dr. Brandt, I could talk to you all afternoon, but it's been a pleasure. And maybe that means we'll have to have you come back. It's been fascinating to get the analysis of the political scientists on a technical issue to be able to chat about, you know, export and, you know, economic nationalism and all these other things.

01:18:18:17 - 01:18:24:20

Chris Keefer

And I'm looking forward to having you in my network skill to bounce ideas off. So thank you for being so generous with your time and thank you for coming on.

01:18:24:22 - 01:18:26:17

Duane Bratt

Okay. Thanks, Chris.