Nuclear reactor is not needed to produce medical isotopes

For a long time, the nuclear lobby has been touting nuclear medicine as the reason for Australia having a nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights. However, the reactor was set up long before the nuclear medicine idea was agleam in the lobby’s eye.

It is not simple nor cheap to set up non nuclear methods of producing medical isotopes . However, it can be done, and in the long run, is less expensive than managing the radioactive waste debt to be passed on to future generations.

Australia’s Lucas Heights nuclear reactor is not necessary. The “nuclear medicine” rationale is just a fig leaf tacked on to this dangerous facility

AUDIO: Reactors avoided in production of medical isotopes http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/reactors-avoided-in-production-of-medical-isotopes/6315814 14 March 2015

TRIUMF is Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics. The facility conducts experiments in subatomic physics, develops new particle detector technologies, and produces isotopes for medical imaging. Tom Ruth describes the basics of nuclear medicine and how his group is focused on advancing current nuclear medicine technology to ensure a supply of non-reactor based technetium-99m (Tc-99m) for Canada and beyond. This important isotope is used worldwide in tens of millions of medical procedures each year for diagnosing diseases in the heart and bones, and elsewhere in the body.

March 16, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized

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The Editor
The Advertiser

It’s good to see that some pro-nuclear advocates are willing to include, albeit using spurious arguments, the nuclear weapons issue in discussing the pros and cons of the nuclear industry (The Advertiser, 17/3/15). The fact remains that the South Australian Government and the nuclear industry do not, but seem to prefer spin over substance.

Pro-nuclear spin doctors want to use fancy terms like “international waste disposal facility”. Last time round they used the term “repository” for a great big hole in the ground into which was dumped barrels of radioactive waste.

Despite spending billions of dollars, no country has yet come up with an acceptable method of disposing of radioactive nuclear waste. The spectre of “retrievable storage” for thousands of years is all that can be expected into the foreseeable future.

The nuclear spin doctors would also have us believe that nuclear wastes are mostly the product of medical treatment and research. The truth is that the overwhelming contributors to all sorts of radioactive nuclear waste are the nuclear power and weapons industries.

Dennis Matthews

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Comment by Dennis Matthews | March 17, 2015 | Reply

Antinuclear

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