Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

My name is Chris Keefer. I'm a Toronto-based emergency physician and the president of Canadians for Nuclear Energy. I'll be making three main points in my testimony today. First, nuclear energy is the keystone technology of our clean energy transition. Second, SMRs are worthy of exploration, but our CANDU reactor technology should remain central to our decarbonization efforts. Third, Canada possesses the vital preconditions to rapidly and successfully deploy nuclear energy thanks to our CANDU refurbishment program.

Why is nuclear power fundamental to the success of our energy transition? Our remaining hydroelectric and geothermal opportunities are limited, and the real-world evidence is in: Wind and solar are unable to deliver on deep decarbonization or energy security.

Germany offers us a cautionary tale. Because the sun often does not shine and the wind often does not blow, Germany, despite a 550-billion euro green energy transition, relied on coal as its number one source of electricity in 2021. In addition to coal, it remains critically dependent on Russian natural gas, which is bankrolling Putin's war of aggression in Ukraine.

Nuclear energy, in contrast, has a proven track record. Ontario, unlike Germany, was able to phase out coal entirely thanks to nuclear energy. This action still stands as North America's greatest greenhouse gas reduction, and has delivered most of our national progress on emissions since 2005.

The need to rapidly scale up our nuclear fleet should not be controversial. All four IPCC decarbonization pathways that limit global warming to 1.5 degrees required nuclear to increase by 100% to 500% by 2050. Is it possible for us to accomplish such a task? If so, what is our quickest route to meeting the goals that the IPCC has set out for us?

SMRs are a promising suite of technologies. There's certainly a need for smaller reactors like the BWRX-300 and others to fit the grids of our less populous provinces and to decarbonize remote northern communities' mining and industrial sites.

There's also significant interest in SMRs coming from our NATO partners in Europe. Canada, as a first mover in the west, has the opportunity to domesticate a large part of this future SMR supply chain and support our European allies in their transition away from Russian fossil fuels. However, SMRs should be thought of as a complement and not a replacement for CANDU in the pursuit of net zero and energy security.

Why does CANDU offer Canada such an important opportunity? In Canada we brought 23 large CANDU reactors online in just 22 years. Nationally, it is our second-largest and second-cheapest source of electricity after hydro. We know it can be done. Countries like South Korea and China continue to efficiently build new nuclear. However, recent construction experience in the west has not inspired confidence, with nuclear plants under construction in the U.S.A. and Europe blowing past their deadlines and budgets.

What went wrong? In short, it was a perfect storm. These countries, after decades of no new nuclear construction, pursued novel first-of-a-kind designs with atrophied nuclear supply chains and workforces. Furthermore, they often paid for it using expensive private capital because of a lack of commitment from their respective governments and utilities.

What makes Canada different? We have in the CANDU a standardized reactor design with a record of excellent operational performance, and we are running our CANDU fleet better than ever. In the words of former national resources minister Seamus O'Regan, CANDU is a “gold standard” reactor. Many believe that if it were on the drawing board today, CANDU would be considered an advanced nuclear design.

Our CANDU refurbishment program is proceeding on budget and on time, and is renewing most of our nuclear fleet for another 40 years of operation. We are building not only most of the reactor components, like steam generators and pressure tubes, but also the critical project management, manufacturing and installation experience we need to build the new fleet of CANDU reactors that will decarbonize Canada.

Finally, Canada can facilitate access to affordable capital by, for example, including nuclear in the green bond framework. Private capital is eager to invest in nuclear. Nuclear is the ultimate economic stimulus, with a $1.40 return to the Canadian economy for every dollar invested due to our 96% made-in-Canada supply chain.

I have some final recommendations. We must extend the refurbishment program to include all of Canada's CANDU fleet, including Pickering. We must build new CANDU as urgently as possible, starting with the remaining licensed sites at Darlington and new sites in our larger provinces. We should continue to support the construction of the west's first new SMRs at Darlington and Chalk River. Finally, nuclear must be included in federal financial mechanisms like the green bond framework.

Thank you very much.

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