A notice is up on Merx, a procurement site commonly used by the federal government, inviting industry to "participate in, invest in and/or manage the laboratories."
Models under consideration include:
- public-private partnership;
- government-owned, contractor operated;
- maintenance and operation.
The federal government, which is expected to announce deep cuts to spending in the upcoming budget, said the move was to save money.
Departments have already been asked to submit scenarios slashing 10 per cent of their respective budgets ahead of the budget release as the government seeks to make a dent in the deficit. This could include thousands of public service jobs in Ottawa.
As of November the federal government is about $9 billion to the good of last year, at $17.3 billion – ahead of schedule.
"The restructuring of the laboratories is conducted in the context of the overall government approach to fiscal responsibility amid challenging domestic and international developments," the notice on Merx stated.
"It is a critical step to further strengthen Canada's nuclear industry while reducing taxpayers' exposure to commercial risks in the nuclear sector."
AECL, a Crown corporation, sold the Candu nuclear reactor business to SNC-Lavalin for $15 million, a sale that closed in October.
What remains is a set of nuclear laboratories. The closest to Ottawa is the Chalk River facility, near Deep River and 200 kilometres northwest of Ottawa. There is also Whiteshell Laboratories in Pinawa, Man. and several smaller facilities.
Activities the laboratories undertake include managing and decommissioning nuclear waste, producing medical isotopes (most famously for Ottawa's Nordion Inc.), supporting Candu and performing nuclear science and technology.
Maintaining the aging facilities costs $150 million a year, the government stated in the documents, the brunt of which is supported by public money. Restructuring is expected to spread the costs "across all activities operating at the laboratories."
In addition, about half a billion dollars in infrastructure upgrades will be required in the coming years, including $325 million for nuclear waste and decommissioning, $95 million to support Candu, $55 million for nuclear science and technology, and $100 million for operation of National Research Universal, which does medical isotopes and neutron beam research.
These figures do not include isotopes nor a possible new research reactor.
Site visits are available to interested contractors, and the deadline to respond to the request is April 2.
The government stated this is not yet a formal bid, but the first step in a process to restructure the laboratories.
In some cases, AECL has contracts extending through 2016, which could push certain restructuring elements until after that date, the documents stated.
The NRU reactor went offline in May 2009 due to a leak that took more than a year to fix, causing a global shortage of medical isotopes and hurting MDS Nordion's bottom line. MDS divested itself of Nordion in 2010.
Nordion forecasts its medical isotope business will again see shortfalls when the facility is shut down for planned relicensing requirements later this year.
Hi Tom, Thanks for your comment. Here is what the Nuclear Waste Management Organization had to say on that topic: The Nuclear Waste Management Organization is responsible for implementing Canada’s long-term management plan for used nuclear fuel. All Canadian used nuclear fuel is currently managed on an interim basis by its owners, not the NWMO. Questions about how AECL manages its waste at Chalk River are best directed to the company itself. Elizabeth Howell Ottawa Business Journal