RRFM 2009 Transactions - European Nuclear Society

keep the market open. Progressively the Nordion share of market dropped from 80 % to 40
% and NTP became a major supplier together with IRE and Mallinckrodt (COVIDIEN)
At that time it was difficult for IRE to consider significant investment in a new reactor despite
the fact that IRE collaborated to the investigation of different projects, namely with SIEMENS
for a small dedicated classical reactor (MING), with B&W and TCI for a homogeneous
reactor (MIPR) and with SCK/CEN-IBA for an Accelerator Driven System (ADONIS).
In the mean time IRE invested for having access to a 4 th Reactor, FRJ-II in Jülich, but
unexpectedly this reactor was definitively shutdown in 2006 and IRE had to investigate the
feasibility of FRM-II in Munich for replacing it. In Canada the Maple reactors were never
operational due to technical problems and the project is currently cancelled.
Therefore the greater risk of crisis is focused on the availability of 2 reactors NRU and HFR,
when the other reactors also used by NTP (SAFARI), COVIDIEN (BR2) and IRE (BR2,
OSIRIS) can only help to reduce the impact of the crisis. Definitively the world has been
lucky up to now to succeed keeping IRE, NTP and COVIDIEN as significant producers
without relying only on the Maple project.
4. Response to the crisis of 2008
4.1. On short time during the crisis, reactor operators considered the possibility to make last
minute modification of their operating plans, and some of them succeeded to reduce outage
time by postponing some works. COVIDIEN and IRE worked together for optimizing the use
of the still available reactors and obtained a significant support of NTP.
The nuclear licensing authorities both from The Netherlands, Belgium and France
contributed to manage the crisis consequences by issuing authorizations on short time notice
both at the level of transportation, adaptation of process and restart of HFR.
The pharmaceutical authorities, working together with the nuclear medicine departments,
optimized the use of Tc 99m giving priority to emergency cases (20 %), agreeing on an even
split of the available generators to all hospitals, reducing the activity of each generator and
optimizing its use and last but not least recommending alternative procedures (Tl 201 , FDG) or
other imaging techniques (MRI, CT, US, ….) even if quality and cost are affected.
AIPES (the Association of Imaging Producers and Equipment Suppliers) and its reactor and
isotope coordination group, the Nuclear Safety Authorities from the world together with the
Health Authorities and the NEA with the support of IAEA and EC, organized several
meetings during the crisis for investigating possible short term solution to reduce the impact
of the crisis and long term solution to reduce the risk of its occurrence.
4.2. On midterm, IRE and COVIDIEN are working today to increase the availability of the
European reactor network, first by discussing with BR2 for installing 2 additional RIG’s and
possibly increasing the number of cycles. On the other side IRE has already, cost shared
with TMU, a feasibility study for installing in FRM-II reactor an irradiation facility which could
satisfy the requirements of its weekly current production when in operation. The results are
quite promising as FRM-II provides high thermal flux and operates on very regular cycles of
60 days, 4 times per year. IRE also resumed discussions with REZ reactor for having
additional irradiation support.
On its site, following on the incident, IRE decided to make important investments for
upgrading the nuclear safety of its processing plant.
In Australia, ANSTO is currently starting again production of Mo99 by irradiating LEU targets
in the new OPAL reactor and is expected to increase progressively its production for
becoming within a few years a major supplier in the world.
4.3. On long term, IRE agreed with CEN/SCK and IBA to restart a new feasibility study for an
improved ADONIS design with the expectation of having possibly this dedicated isotope
production facility available within 5 years. Otherway the option of a small dedicated reactor
(MING project) remains open.
IRE and COVIDIEN are also investigating the conditions for making use of JHR currently in
construction in France and which should replace OSIRIS in 2014.
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