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An investigation is underway to determine if a leak that led to the shutdown of the nuclear reactor in Chalk River, Ont. last week — and the looming interruption of the country’s medical isotope supply — has any connection with another leak last December.
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, which runs the 52-year-old National Research Universal reactor, said Tuesday the leak of heavy water — water that acts as a stabilizer during nuclear fission — was discovered in a routine maintenance check last week after the reactor was taken off-line following a power outage.
The leak is coming from the base of the reactor where a wall has eroded.
The shutdown is expected to last a month at the reactor about 150 kilometres west of Ottawa, which produces half of the world’s medical isotopes.
In December 2008, a small heavy-water leak shut down the reactor for three days before it was restarted. The 47-litre leak stopped on its own so no repairs were made at the time.
AECL spokesman Dale Coffin said they’re trying to determine if the leaks are connected.
“At this point, we’re not sure,” he said Tuesday. “We’re checking the leak from December. It stopped and didn’t reappear again. It was difficult because we couldn’t isolate it to one particular area.”
The shutdown of the NRU reactor will have repercussions for hospitals across the country that rely on life-saving medical isotopes to screen for illnesses such as cancer and heart disease.
The Canadian Society of Nuclear Medicine said Tuesday that hospitals will see a shortage in their medical isotope supply as early as next week.
Those in Eastern Canada, which rely more heavily on the technology from the Chalk River plant, will be hardest hit.
“Depending on how long the shutdown lasts, it will be a considerable problem in Eastern Canada,” said CSNM president Dr. Doug Abrams in Edmonton. “Next week is going to be the start of a real shortage.”
Abrams said hospitals have been notified about the high probability of a shortage, expected to come into effect as early as May 23.
“We’ve been working on contingency plans, like planning for other producers where possible,” he said.
Talks are continuing with a nuclear reactor facility in Europe, which supplies most of the medical isotopes for Western Canada and the U.S.
“They’re being consulted but they have to look at their supply,” said Abrams, whose group represents nearly 400 medical professionals in nuclear medicine across the country.
“We have been actively pursuing them but we still have to wait and see what happens. We might know by the end of the week.”
Repairs are being planned for the NRU reactor, but they are not expected to start until next week.
The heavy water from the leak has been contained in drums and represents “no threat to workers, the public, the environment or nuclear safety related to this event,” AECL said in a statement.
Some radioactive tritium, which forms when heavy water is exposed to radiation, has been released through the NRU ventilation system, but the amount is what is permitted under the plant’s licence.
Abrams said the probability of another shutdown of the NRU reactor is high due to its old age.
“We have a short-term problem every time Chalk River or one of the other producers has a slowdown or hiccup. Everybody will be in short supply,” he said.
The former president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Linda Keen, said Tuesday questions remain about the power outage that caused the reactor to be temporarily decommissioned.
“It’s a very old reactor. It’s going to always have issues,” she said. “A loss of power is a very crucial thing for any sort of operating reactor. One of the questions that needs to be asked is what were the implications and safety around the power loss.”
Keen said the summer is “high season” for medical isotopes because there are no planned holiday breaks.
“The demand is quite high here and overseas,” she said.
In January 2008, Keen was fired for her role in ordering the shutdown of the Chalk River facility for four weeks in 2007 after a routine maintenance check found safety provisions at the plant were lacking.
The decision to suspend operations caused a critical shortage of medical isotopes and prompted the government to persuade Parliament to override the nuclear regulator and allow the reactor to be restarted.
Last month, the federal government gave AECL $222 million to go toward building an advanced nuclear power plant and maintain operations at Chalk River.
In 2008, AECL abandoned the two new reactors that were supposed to replace the NRU reactor. The twin MAPLE-1 and -2 reactors, also at Chalk River, both ran into repeated technical problems and breakdowns after hundreds of millions of dollars in construction costs.
A spokeswoman for Kanata, Ont.-based MDS Nordion, the sole recipient of medical isotopes from Chalk River, said a statement will be released later Tuesday.
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