Your View

In years past Three Mile Island and Chernobyl sent thrills of horror down the spines of just about everyone who had something to live for.

The fear crossed party lines and political ideologies, making nuclear power generation (nuclear ANYTHING) a bogey man among people just about everywhere. Not in my back yard! They cried, and at the time, they were right to do so.

Now, because oil is at an all time high, coal is essentially unusable, power consumption has rocketed, wind power and hydropower can't supply the needed quantities, nuclear is fashionable again.

What has this to do with medical isotopes?

Only the word "nuclear."

Nuclear energy is now seen as the salvation for our power consumption requirements as well as an antidote against GHG emissions.

That the once great bogey-man of a nuclear accident killing millions of people has been declared an unfortunate regional concern but not a national - end of days - scenario. People are a lot more accepting.

Mark my words, when the politicians see that the rump majority of us no longer fear the "nuclear" monster as much as we fear freezing to death in the dark, they'll suddenly find the courage to re-invest in this technology, which means all manner of nuclear medecine technologies will gain a free ride on power generation's coattails.

We will have to scale back oil sands development as it is just too outrageous in terms of GHG emissions, so look for a nuke plant in your backyard sometime soon!

For obvious reasons, having an adequate supply of radioactive isotopes to assure the proper care of our patients and having the proper maintenance of our nuclear reactors for the public's safety are both very important.

However, they are not mutually exclusive. A good dose of foresight, planning and creativity usually allow us to face any challenge. It appears to me that this might have been lacking in this situation.

First of all, there is a contingency plan but unfortunately its been plagued with problems. The plan being the two new MAPLE reactors on the Chalk River site.

Due to a physics problem that AECL cannot figure out, they have been delayed for 7 years because CNSC (Federal Nuclear Safety Agency) won't license them until they fix it. This is the real embarrassment if you ask me.

Contingency is not as easy as you think. A circa $1B investment in new reactor infrastructure is not trivial. The current cost (cheap!) of Mo-99 (source of Tc-99m) has been subsidized in that NRU has been bought and paid for by the federal government.

Then there is the production method which relies on high enrichment (weapons grade) uranium for the production targets. Do people think its easy to setup a supply of this?

Research is underway to come up with ways of using low enrichment uranium but nuclear waste is higher and plutonium is produced as a by-product - yet another nuclear proliferation issue.

Much of the bread and butter work could be done with a cyclotron and PET. E.g. bone scans, cardiac studies, cancer, but:

1. Cyclotron and PET cameras are expensive technology (10-20 fold) and not under widespread deployment in Canada (especially Ontario)

2. Radiopharmaceuticals made by cyclotron are subject to considerable Health Canada oversight further driving up the cost. The process for getting approval to use these radiopharmaceuticals is NOT trivial.

NRU has required major repairs for over fifteen years.

The recent shutdown is no surprise to anyone in the nuclear industry.

Where are the high paid execcutives and government bureaucrats responsible for the delay of the two new replacement reactors funded by over half a billion dollars in interest free loans to MDS/NordionWhere is the accountability?

I was personally assured five years ago that contingency plans were in place for alternate supplies for just such an event.

It is inhuman to do this to hundreds of sick patients worldwide.

I really don't care who is at fault.

I am just shocked that the medical system is so fragile.

My dad is one of the thousands of patients waiting for one of the tests that relies on these isotopes.

He was diagnosed with lung cancer a few weeks ago.

He definitely has cancer in one lung, and possibly both lungs.

The surgeon won't operate until he knows for sure, which now we won't know for awhile until this isotope mess is cleared up.

Roch and a few other benighted posters want to politicize the issue.

Roch wants to put the matter into private hands, who will immediately tell us how expensive 'research' is and price the isotopes out of sight of the ordinary user - read 'taxpayer.'

Others blame the Liberals, or the Conservatives, even the NDP (!) who will be thrilled to learn how far their influence extends.

The situation as is would never have arisen if all governments had seized upon nuclear power as a very good source of electricity and taken advantage of the other opportunities for medical research which many small nuclear plants would have facilitated.

I expect that Tony Clement will make a big show of taking small steps instead of boldly rectifying the situation by announcing Canada's commitment to atomic energy in all it's forms.

Although I still fail to see how I'm incorrect, we can take a look at your points too.

In reverse order, 5) The same nausea you talk about on every thread.

4) Instead of spending a ton on a private firm, we can talk about how unions have too much power and spend the money better on union reform.

3) CT's aren't bad, but they tend to be limited in what they're looking at at one time, and getting too many of those images done is soaking up a TON of ionizing radiation (more so than getting trace isotopes injected per se). MRI's are great, but still limited, plus they're large, and take a lot of power to operate, and a lot of space.

2) Yes, more research would be great, but your point about the cyclotron is lacking as it's only good for PET scan (which they're used for), something that uses gamma radiation. What about Beta emissions needed in the form of molybdenum-99, something with an atomic weight high enough that it takes energy of the magnitude of a nuclear reactor to create cheaply?

Unfortunatly, unless you can come up with the solution to cold fusion for us, I'd like to know how you'll manufacture high atomic weight isotopes.

1) Where else can provide the needed radio isotopes? If there was a way to pick up the slack somewhere else, why wouldn't they be taking advantage of such a good buisiness opportunity?

As to the first question, I have friends and family with cancer, so the question for me is, who decides who merits use of what is left of the supply? Why?

Is it first come, first serve or is it based on whether you have a good/bad outcome chance of living THROUGH the disease?

As with everything, there should ALWAYS be a back up plan in place.

I though we were suppose to have all kinds of back up plans for everything of importance.

Wouldn't this be considered important?

The contingency plan for this scenario was to have a second suitable reactor built. However, funding and/or the will to build was not made available.

As for safety issues w/a private company, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) is responsible for lisencing and inspecting all facilities using or manufacturing radioactive materials (ex. hospitals, labs etc.), including nuclear power plants and reactors.

They have to power to shut down and revoke the lisence of any facility that does not meet safety standards. So the worry about safety at a private facility is a moot point, as it would have to be lisenced before it ever went into operation.

There are other suppliers for the molybdenum/technetium generators (simply called generators in the biz) which is what we were getting from the Chalk reactor.

However, these suppliers do not have the capacity to suddenly provide 100% of the supply, where previously they only supplied about 33%...it just can't happen. I don't know how the decisions are being made about who gets the few extra generators that can be produced.

I wouldn't bother blaming either the Libs or the Cons for this. On the Issue of building new power plants neither of them has been shown to have a testicle and done anything for fear of upsetting the environmental groups or the NDP.

Someone mentions the "technology to create this product", unfortunately it's not like making bottle caps. You have to have a raw material to start with and for that you need the nuclear plants to produce it (you can't plant Isotope bushes).

The enviro lobby is going to twist this situation around and say that this is another example of why we shouldn't rely on nuclear energy. I think it is an example of why we should invest more in it. It's cheap, clean, and has beneficial spinoffs.

(I once got in an argument about storage of nuclear waste with a member of Green Peace and I suggested the Moon for storage and was in no uncertain terms told that would harm the Lunar ecology...yup, gotta worry about the ecology on a lifeless rock)

They should build at least one Nuclear Reactor in Fort McMurray in Northern Alberta, there's huge uranium deposits up there.

Your answer is still incorrect, Rich.
What could have been done? Think about it.

Here are some possibilities:

1. Greater reliance on imported radioisotopes.
Canada supplies 2/3 of global demand, much too high for one 50 year old plant in Liberal Ontario to handle.

2. Further research into advanced, non-reactor radioisotope sources such as cyclotrons, with the aim of sharply reducing demand for reactor-produced radioisotopes (so Canada doesn’t have to deal with the adverse impacts of reactors such as intractable radioactive waste management problems)

3. Greater use of alternative clinical modalities such as MRI, and Computerised Tomography.

4. What's taking AECL so long to build replacement capacity? They are TEN YEARS behind schedule! Bureaucratic red tape can be eliminated by hiring a private firm to get the job done properly without disability of Government unionized workforce taking extended vacations and coffee breaks.

5. Sadly, nothing can be done by years of Liberal dithering allowing this situation to become critical, however now that Canada has a New Government at least we can look forward to a brighter future for our nuclear radioactive cancer treating needs.

We really need reactors and nuclear plants in Canada period. I didn't know there were specific types that produced the correct type of radioactive material. But we need more plants to produce those, as well to curb our reliance on less effective power sources.

Read everything that I said then Roch, because I stated that we could alleviate this problem if we had another reactor of the same type here in Canada.

To quote myself - "Unless we want to open another plant of the same type here in Canada...", last I checked, that's a solution, and IMO, much better than letting a private company handle something so sensitive to security.

The gov isn't perfect, but I'd rather the gov handle my radioactive material. Oh, and by the way Roch, we could have avoided this if we had another facility of the same type.

Oh, and I almost forgot, without a second source, there can be no contingency planning. Almost all the medical isotopes created have a half-life of 8 days or less.

That means of the one pound of product you have, in 8 days, you have 1/2 pound left! It's awfully hard to stockpile something that disappears like that.

Kinda like trying to keep a grain silo full when it has a bunch of large holes throughout!

Rich, you need to do more homework since you forgot to answer the question.

"Have you been affected by this? Is there any way this could have been avoided?"

A main part of doing homework is ensuring you are answering the question being asked before spouting off.

Nuclear reactor safety is extremely important, and kudos to the gov for making the right decision in making sure the plant stays closed for safety reasons.

If the reactor were to go up because corners were cut or the right protocols weren't followed, not only would people be complaining, but they'd be getting irradiated at the same time.

I only got to read the first 8 posts before writing this, and to all but two, do your homework before you start spouting your mouths off.

There is only one source of these materials for a reason, and it's those who complain about nuclear technology and its evils that we only have one source of medical radioactive isotopes.

Though I couldn't quickly track down how many of the particular NRU reactors there are in the world, I can almost guarantee you there aren't many. They're a product of British/US/Canadian research after WWII. T

hey produced a research reactor in Chalk Lake which drew international scientific interest. It was the work done there that enabled us to create the CANDU reactor, a hard water/low uranium content fuel reactor which is one of the safest reactors in the world.

It was also here that much research in radiation medicine was done because of the one of a kind reactors we have here.

So, now you take this "one of a kind" facility developed in a partnership, couple it with fairly stringeant nuclear non-proliferation agreements and Canadas non-nuclear weapon stance for quite some time, and our national security protocols that probably keep some of the information into making the reactors a secret from falling into the wrong hands, and you get the situation where in now.

Take the research done there that produced cobalt-60 as a replacement to radium for some medical procedures. The cobalt-60 treatment costs 50,000$ to produce (madeinCanada), where it costs 50,000,000$ to produce the radium needed.

Unless we want to open another plant of the same type here in Canada, we have no room whatsoever to gripe about the shortage.

Mark, what does it matter even if as you claim AECL is the least expensive producer, if they can't provide the isotopes reliably, without extended outages?

This is just like Government run medicare, it's FREE, if you are lucky enough to access it after two year wait for hip replacement or whatever.

Government redtape and beaucracy created this mess, and only the government can fix it and prevent it from happening again!

This is an absolute disgrace!

Attention needs to be paid to who is impacted by this and to what extent,then the government bodies that regulate these plants need a tune-up!

Is there anything the government DOESN'T screw up at our expense?

I was shocked to learn that was no contingency in place. I think that something as simple as redundent systems within a single facility would have been enough to prevent the current state of things.

Surely this is one lesson that really didn't need to be learned the hard way.

Having grown up in the Chalk River area, although I have never worked for AECL, everyone else in my family at one point or another, in different capacaties, has.

I would like to point out that AECL at Chalk River is NOT a nuclear power plant- it is an atomic research center.

Unfortunately, over the last few decades the Canadian Government has decided to cut back on funding for a lot of the research (causing several branches of the company to disappear, and many jobs along with them) because they were not profitable.

If we want to avoid problems like this in the future, we need to get the government to consistently (not depending on which party is in power) ensure that there is funding for scientific research in our country, and to listen to said scientists when they make recommendations -such as perhaps building a new NRU to replace the one that has been operating far longer than it could originally have been expected to might be a good idea.

You know- just in case something happens to it?

It's a shame this was not forseen and a contigency plan put in place, but as a resident of ottawa, and chalk river only a few hours away, i'm happy they are taking precaution and time to properly maintain the plant and ensure the safety of the community.

If we want to accept the return of nuclear power, we have to accept it comes with delays and long safety checks.

Yes, it could have been avoided, if the world's superpowers had right conscience and priorities where they belong!

Why is this not the case, speaks volumes of the nature of our political systems. Shame!

Why is money not spend where people need it? Who prevents governments to serve people as opposed to various lobbyists? How and why???

With such a limited supply, it would be interesting to know who gets it. Does everyone needing it stay in the same line, or are different cases prioritized, and if so, on what basis?

This situation could be seen as a test of "universal health care = equality"....

Nuclear reactors, contrary to popular belief, are not identical. The nuclear pile used at Chalk River is extrememly small compared to their larger cousins at Pickering or Bruce.

While my nuclear physics knowledge is a bit rusty as I graduated in '86 I can tell you I really don't want a "for profit" organization running one. Their primary responsibility is to their shareholders and not safety.

We in North America have been duped into believing two very incorrect things... First is that all thngs are better privatized and the second is that nuclear energy is unsafe. In both cases these details are usually glossed over when groups or individuals try to "prove" their point.

The amazing thing that did come out of this is that AECL, a government crown corp company, ends up being the best and lowest cost solution for almost all nuclear medicine in the world...

I am sure Iran or North Korea can help out...

Chris hit it on the head. If we had more (well-managed) nuclear power plants in Canada, we'd avoid this critical medical loss and reduce emissions and be a greener country. Save lives and a positive environmental impact? Can't do that! Makes too much sense...

But that old 1970's logic holds in place. Can't give up the ponytail, the pot, the psychedelic tunes and the irrational fear of nuke-power.

Blame the Liberals again eh Roch?? The Chalk River reactor is run by the atomic energy commission of Canada, therefore the Feds - nothing to do with Liberals.

The planned shutdown for this very old facility was for november but was pushed back. According to Clement, there was a contingency plan in place, maybe like during the SARS outbreak...but since isotopes only last 3 days and the reactor is unsafe, the teflon cons have an excuse again.

Talking about cornering the market!

Why did we allow one single source for such a vital product?

Looks like another situation where somebody was asleep at the switch. Surely the technology to create this product can be made available at other plants.

Yes it could've been avoided, but thanks to crying whiny left wingers who are against nuclear energy, we are now going to have fellow citizens die from cancer. Thanks Lefties, another job well done!

It could have been avoided by allowing private industry to run the Chalk River plant, rather than Government run, however the Liberals and NDO screamed " no 2 tier radioactive medicine!" therefore we get less than satisfactory product.

Another way the situation could have been avoided is to have a contingency plan in place, e.g., have another supplier if old Chalk breaks down.