The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has renewed Bruce Power’s operating licence for five years.
It lets the company operate the Bruce A and B plants near Tiverton until 2014, and to refuel units one and two of Bruce A, which are nearly finished being refurbished.
Meanwhile, CEO Duncan Hawthorne is offering some candid views on the success of the company, and the future of the nuclear industry in Canada.
He muses that Bruce Power could go into the medical isotope business if it wanted in order to meet the shortage posed by problems with the aging reactor that produces them at the Chalk River Lab near Ottawa.
However, he says no immediate plans are being made to start producing them, and says the federal government has a process in place with an expert panel looking at a number of options.
He says one of those options is getting the isotopes from outside Canada– something that has been happening since the problems with the Chalk River reactor started.
Hawthorne is also standing by the existing design of the CANDU nuclear reactor.
He says the CANDU-6 model tackles the need for electricity in small countries that don’t have strong electricity networks, and understanding of nuclear, or a uranium supply of their own for fuel.
Hawthorne says the new CANDU model won’t serve that need as easily because it requires enriched fuel while the current model doesn’t.
He says there could be a future for the so-called “spent fuel” that ends up in storage after being fed through reactors.
Hawthorne believes that within five years, the Obama administration in the U-S will allow spent fuel to be reprocessed so it can be used as reactor fuel again, which means it will also be allowed in Canada.
He says other countries have always allowed the fuel to be reprocessed but the USA and Canada have not due to security and political considerations during the Cold War.
Hawthorne says the quarter just ended could possibly be the best ever for Bruce Power.
He doesn’t want to speculate too much on commercial issues, but says it was an excellent quarter and results will be published during the next week.
Hawthorne they’re having a good run in a difficult market and the recent quarter could leave the company with a very strong year financially.
He adds that they are trying to lay the ground work for future refurbishing work at the Bruce B plant, and that means they have to secure 12 billion dollars in investment to make it possible.