The future of NRU and CNL

(2015 February 06) Today, the Government of Canada announced that Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) will operate the National Research Universal (NRU) reactor until March 31, 2018, subject to relicensing. At the conclusion of this period, the reactor will be placed in a state of storage with surveillance until decommissioning.



While NRU is a big part of CNL, it is not the only part. NRU supports three of our ten core capabilities – our Centres of Excellence. CNL is responsible for the delivery of a large scope of work which is expected to continue, and in fact grow, in the coming years.



The Government of Canada has signalled its long-term support for our industry and for CNL through the renewal and revitalization of our site infrastructure. This includes a new Hydrogen Isotopes Technology Laboratory to be fully operational this spring, and a new research complex to open in the near future.



Over the next three years, we will continue to ensure NRU operates safely and reliably. We will work with our customers to safely derive maximum value in this time period and to accelerate research and irradiation campaigns. Planning is underway to find alternate solutions to minimize the disruption on our impacted research programs.



Our people are our most valuable asset. I anticipate that NRU will continue to require essentially the same workforce it employs today for at least the next five years. New opportunities are expected to present themselves over the years ahead. We will be actively working to retain, retrain and redeploy those staff eventually affected by the shutdown of the NRU.



Enabled by our people, the NRU reactor has served this country well. It has provided a research facility for Nobel-prize winning scientific advances; it has been the foundation for an industry which has grown to employ more than 30,000 Canadians; it has been instrumental in the development of the technology that cleanly and reliably powers our homes and businesses; and, it has contributed to medical advances that have touched the lives of millions of people around the world. By the time of shutdown in 2018, the NRU will have served Canada for six decades. We are all proud of this incredible legacy.



Bob Walker

President and CEO