The NRU has provided a research base for Canada's industry for nuclear energy and has been the "workhorse"for research on Neutron-beam and other non-nuclear application, eg. analyzing rocket welds for boosters on the Challenger shuttle and approving steel from IPSCO, Inc. which is Regina-based, safe for use in building bridges.

The Canadian Institute's president Ryan said that other nations were investing in reactors for research and we're considering closing ours down.

And, Ryan continued, we owned the first one, as his voice rose in disbelief. He said that it was extremely annoying.

The institute, which represents over four hundred scientists using neutron-beam research, urged augmenting the NRU with updated "super NRU" versions of the multi-purpose technology.

We can, said Ryan, it would be easy, adding that the project would gain advantage of over fifty years of technical know-how and many upgrades.

Basically, he said, this is what we'd like to have happen.

Last year, two AECL isotope reactors in Chalk River were canceled after going millions of dollars over budget while still failing to pass inspections.

Harper's community director, Kory Teneycke, said we just will not make any further investments in the MAPLE, or, the reactor at AECL.

When the idea for another research reactor which would be built by the government, that idea too, was met with much negativity. Teneycke said that she didn't think anyone was considering giving billions of dollars to AECL at present for new projects.

Teneycke mentioned that the decision concerning Chalk River will not end Canadian nuclear research or the governments sponsorship of these types of research. She said that she was sure there was room for involvement by the government in lots of potentially feasible ways, but that the government may have to consider case-by-case.

Ryan will appear on Tuesday before the resources committee, which studies the Chalk River isotope crisis.

A former director general of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, John Waddington, says the new reactor that AECL will try selling to Ontario, it's called an ACR 1000, is dependent on efficient experimental work expected to be completed in the NRU.

Waddington says Canada's existing reactor fleets safety and continuance of nuclear power in Canada will depend on there being a reactor available for research.

In longterm, a replacement for NRU will be needed in the future.

Teneycke backed away later on from comments he made saying that he spoke too quickly and mistakenly and would have limited his remarks to MAPLE reactors instead of AECL in its entirety.

Teneycke later backed away from his earlier comments, saying he "spoke in haste and in error" and should have limited his remarks to the MAPLE reactors and not AECL as a whole.