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Steve Rennie
THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA – The Conservative government is considering selling a stake in Canada's federally owned nuclear vendor, industry sources say.

Industry executives involved in talks with Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn say Ottawa is mulling a public-private partnership for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.

Such an arrangement could bring capital – and stability – to the heavily subsidized Crown corporation.

AECL's future has been uncertain since the federal government hired National Bank Financial earlier this year to review the ownership of the company.

The official line out of Ottawa is that the Harper government will consider the bank's findings before making a decision on AECL.

But a nuclear industry executive says Lunn narrowed it down to two options months ago.

"He tended to say, in private, that the first alternative – maintaining the status quo – was really ruled out and it would either be an outright sale or trying to look for private partners to work with AECL."

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1. if they are going to privatise it, will they privatise the risk too? Under the Nuclear Liability Act the government of the day assumes most of the risk....love that. kind of like the big financial market bailouts all over the world.

2. if it is privatised, does that mean that without a government stake, we could tighten regulations and oversight to the point of eventually phasing it out, now there would be no "conflict of interest"?

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Saint John -- Two huge turbine rotors destined for New Brunswick's Point Lepreau nuclear generating station might remain on the bottom of Saint John Harbour for a few days.

The 107-tonne units toppled into the water Wednesday as they were being loaded onto a barge.

Irving Equipment spokeswoman Mary Keith said divers and an engineering team are trying to decide on the best method and equipment to retrieve the rotors.

The units had recently arrived from Siemens in Britain and were to be installed during refurbishment of the reactor. Ms. Keith says N.B. Power officials say they may have to reinstall the old rotors to keep the project on schedule.

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