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Eighteen months after the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) briefly shut down the National Research Universal (NRU) reactor in Chalk River over a regulatory issue — precipitating an international medical isotope crisis that led to parliamentary hearings and much soul-searching within government — we find ourselves right back in the same situation with no sign of a commitment to a long-term solution.
The NRU reactor in Chalk River was shut for repairs on May 19. This shutdown is causing a world shortage of Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99), a key medical isotope, because NRU was producing nearly half of the world’s supply. Mo-99 cannot be stockpiled as it has a half-life of slightly less than three days. The Mo-99 from NRU is used in 18,000 medical diagnostic procedures every day, yet its production is totally dependent on a 52-year-old facility that is long overdue for replacement.
But securing Canada’s medical isotope supply is only one reason Canada urgently needs to replace this aging NRU reactor.
Canada’s expertise in all three missions of the NRU reactor is jeopardized by both the current shutdown and the continued uncertainty over the future of the facility. Those missions are: (1) materials research using neutron beams, (2) nuclear energy R&D, and (3) the production of medical isotopes. We urgently need to construct a national laboratory that would surpass the NRU reactor in all of those missions. The science community that uses the neutron beams in Chalk River has published its vision for a concept facility called the Canadian Neutron Centre (CNC). The CNC would be based around a multipurpose research reactor that would draw on the NRU reactor’s long successful history, while taking full advantage of advances in technology and safety measures.
Building a facility like the CNC is not just an issue of medical isotopes, nor is it an issue of the future of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), which owns and operates the NRU reactor. It is much broader than that.
The CNC would be a major piece of national infrastructure for science and industry. It is needed to keep Canadian science and industry competitive for the next 50 years. It would support a broad range of fundamental and applied research; it would secure the future of Canada’s $5-billion-a-year nuclear industry; and it would ensure a stable supply of medical isotopes, contributing to the health of tens of thousands of Canadians every year and underpinning Canada’s $350-million-a-year isotope industry.
The neutron beam portion of the CNC alone would be an excellent fit with Canada’s science and technology strategy because it would support a wide spectrum of basic research, while contributing significantly to all four of Canada’s priority areas for research (environment, energy, health and information technologies).
Scientists from all over Canada use neutron beams at Chalk River for diverse research programs. Examples of recent research include hydrogen storage and advanced battery materials for greener vehicles, safety enhancement of components in CANDU power plants and the improvement of nuclear fuels, targeted drug delivery systems for medical diagnosis and treatment, and novel materials which promise innovations in electronics, the backbone of the information and communication technologies industry.
Canada also needs the nuclear science portion of the CNC to develop advanced nuclear technologies and for efficient economic operation of Canada’s aging fleet of CANDU power plants. In 1983, for example, research at the NRU reactor helped avoid a two-year shutdown of Pickering Units 3 and 4 over safety concerns, which would have caused the loss of $800 million in electricity revenues.
The isotope research and production component of the CNC presents an opportunity both to solve the long-term isotope crisis and also to develop new isotopes for medical diagnosis and treatment. While securing the medical isotope supply is a global issue, Canada’s immediate need to invest in a stable reactor source of isotopes for the long term is inescapable.
Building a replacement reactor takes many years. The time to move forward is now. The worst thing that we could do is to repeat the mistake made 18 months ago and do nothing, condemning us to lurch from crisis to crisis until it is finally too late to act. The time is right to engage the National Research Council (NRC), which oversaw the original NRU project, and provide the mandate and funding to lead an inter-agency group with a deadline of six months from today to come forward with a plan for implementation of the new Canadian Neutron Centre.
Dominic Ryan is a professor of physics at McGill University and president of the Canadian Institute for Neutron Scattering.
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