February 16, 2011
AECL in line for more
funding
by Terry Myers
Atomic Energy of Canada
Ltd will get an additional $175 million in funding under the federal
government's final spending plans for the 2010-11 year.
The amount was included in the government's third round of
“supplementary estimates” for the current fiscal year, which ends March
31.
The estimates say the amount will provide funding to “support costs
associated with ensuring isotope production; shutdown of the Dedicated
Isotope Facilities (Maple project); operational and infrastructure
upgrades related to health, safety, security and environmental
priorities at Chalk River Laboratories; new reactor technology
development commercial life extension projects; and management of
operational pressures.”
If approved, the extra money would push AECL's funding for the year to
almost $872 million.
The company received almost $842 million last year, $552 million in
2008-09, and $212 million in 2007-08.
New Democrat natural resources critic Nathan Cullen suggested the
additional funding may be challenged at the Parliamentary committee
level.
"Considering government wants out of the isotope business, they sure
are spending a lot of money," he said last week.
"It's breathtaking, the amount of money being poured into this black
hole while the government's trying to sell it."
However, the request for extra money should come as no surprise.
During testimony before the Senate finance committee in December, AECL
president Hugh MacDiarmid said the company would be back.
AECL received an additional $294 million in the government's second
round of supplementary estimates in November.
That came on top of AECL's baseline $100 million funding, plus an
additional $300 million promised in the 2010 federal budget.
MacDiarmid said that AECL has been going through a period over the past
few years where there has been a “convergence” of a number of forces
“that have created very significant cash demands.”
Among those have been the development of the new Advanced Candu Reactor
(ACR), the need to upgrade infrastructure at the Chalk River Labs,
including the repairs to NRU, and cost overruns on “life extension”
projects like the retrofit of the Point Lepreau reactor in New
Brunswick.
MacDiarmid said that when it comes to Chalk River, “frankly the
infrastructure there was not funded adequately for a decade or more.”
“We're playing a bit of catchup.”
AECL is now “getting through that period of time” and future demands
for funding should be “substantially lower,” MacDiarmid added.
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