One of the largest employers in Renfrew County has a significant economic impact on the region. President and CEO Joe McBrearty at Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) made a presentation to the County of Renfrew council meeting on Wednesday, November 25th.
McBrearty says CNL has 3,300 employees with 2,700 based in Renfrew County with their annual labour costs and benefits around $380-million.
He adds supply chain activity in Renfrew County is $43-million with $115-million being spent in Eastern Ontario. The supply chain activity is the work that is contracted out in the local community for construction and services CNL can’t supply themselves.
McBrearty expects there to be much more expansion and growth at CNL over the next decade. The President and CEO says they’ve already demolished 100-buildings on site and remediated approximately 14 million kilograms of waste. McBrearty says when they take down a building it reduces the hazards and risk to the community.
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited is investing close to $1 Billion in infrastructure renewal for a period of 10 years beginning 2015. Recently a new maintenance and support building was built out of Canadian sourced lumber. A new support facility will bring trade and machine shops into one location and a $370-million advanced nuclear research materials centre will have state of the art nuclear science capabilities.
The President and CEO at CNL says pending the necessary approvals, construction on the Near Surface Disposal Facility (NSDF) is slated to begin in 2022.
McBrearty says the decommissioning of the Nuclear Power Demonstration project is about six months behind the NSDF project.
CNL is also in the early stages of being a host for a small or very small modular reactor. Global First Power will oversee the proposed micro modular reactor construction and operation in Chalk River. The 15 megawatt thermal Micro Modular Reactor Project is currently undergoing an environmental assessment with site preparation expected to start in 2021.
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